Iraqi forces defeated Islamic State group infiltrators in all three areas they had seized near Ramadi, west of Baghdad, on Wednesday after several hours of fighting, police said.

"The security forces and the tribes retook control of the Al-Tash, Majr and Kilometre Seven districts," provincial police chief Major General Hadi Razij Kassar told reporters.

"All the Daesh members were killed," he added, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

The operation by the jihadists was likely to have been an attempted diversion from an offensive that the government launched last week against their last two footholds in Iraq, one of them a series of towns further up the Euphrates Valley from Ramadi