On Wednesday, Reuters reported that a series of coalition air strikes that began in the wee hours slain around 25 Islamic State fighters in the town of al-Siniya, located west of the northern Iraqi city of Baiji.

Sources noted that near 400 fighters accumulated in the nearby towns of Fallujah and Karma the day before with Iraqi army tanks and armored vehicles driving back an attack by Islamic State militants on the town of Amiriya Fallujah, situated west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, army sources said. The final government-controlled town ahead of the central provincial city of Fallujah, the town fell under siege earlier this month, this time with the fighters piling pressure on the capital's western flank. Soldiers destroyed five of the fighters' vehicles, a security source said.

At the eve of October, Hit town, an enclosed market town positioned within the province of Anbar, some 80 miles (130 km) west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad was seized by Islamic State militants. Pursuing greater sovereignty, the province fell under extremists' control after years of divergence between the Sunni majority population and the Shi'ite Muslim-led government. While the tribes-people have not engaged in the battle near Amiriya Fallujah, reconquering the stolen territory and supporting Anbar's Sunni tribes to retaliate against the Islamic State will be fundamental to resuscitating the devastating Iraqi state's control over its territory.

Though conflict rages on, the U.S. and other Western countries have frequently blitzed the Sunni jihadist group's positions in Iraq of the Fallujah area as recently as October 22. Since last month, Gulf monarchies have also participated in air strikes in Syria. Declaring a caliphate-or a Muslim theocracy-Islamic State exploited sectarian warfare and anemic state control to snatch vast swathes of Syria and Iraq earlier in 2014.

At the moment of this report, there weren't any immediate reports on the number of casualties from the conflict. However, it appears that militant advance has ceased.