BAGHDAD: Ten people were killed, including a mother and three children, in a government air strike on a militant-controlled town north of Baghdad on Monday, hospital sources and witnesses said.

The attack targeted the town of Hawija, 230-km from the capital, which is controlled by Muslim insurgents from the Islamic State and other groups opposed to Iraq’s government.

A tribal leader and former army officer said the dead were all civilians, and also included an elderly couple. He blamed the deaths on the militants for locating a base in the centre of the town. Hawija has also seen infighting between the insurgents, with Jihadist Islamic State fighters clashing in June with the Naqshbandi militants, made up of former army officers as well as loyalists of Saddam Hussein’s former ruling Baath party.

The army, backed by militias and volunteer fighters, has been trying to push back the Sunni insurgents since they took over the northern city of Mosul on June 10 and swept south towards the capital.

The army’s attempt to regain the city of Tikrit stalled last week in the face of insurgent defence and it has yet to recapture significant territory. Further north, the Islamic State has been consolidating its control, driving Christians out of the city of Mosul with a weekend ultimatum to either convert to Islam, pay a religious levy to the Islamists, or face death by the sword.

On Monday, Islamic State fighters took over Saint Behnam monastery 30-km southeast of Mosul, ordering a monk and his assistant to leave, a church official and a Christian resident in the area said.