At least 16 Iraqi border guards were killed Monday in a dawn assault by the Islamic State jihadist group on their post near the Syrian frontier, provincial and security officials said.

"Sixteen border guards, including a captain, were killed and four wounded in an attack targeting their headquarters in Al-Walid, near the Syrian border," Faleh al-Issawi, deputy head of Anbar provincial council, told AFP.

He said the attack occurred at around 6:00 am (0300 GMT).

A commander in the Iraqi border force and a police major confirmed the death toll.

Despite the attack, "Al-Walid is still in the hands of Iraqi forces," the major said.

The crossing is one of the country's most remote outposts and lies 500 kilometres (310 miles) west of Baghdad near the westernmost point in Anbar province where the borders of Iraq, Syria and Jordan meet.

Jihadist fighters briefly held Al-Walid border crossing on June 23 but it has remained in government hands since.

Parts of the vast Anbar province, which also borders Saudi Arabia, have been out of government control since the start of the year, months before IS launched a major offensive across Iraq in June.

Government forces backed by US-led airstrikes, Kurdish forces, Sunni tribal fighters and Shiite militiamen have in recent weeks gradually clawed back some of the land lost since June.

But IS fighters have held their ground in Anbar and tried to tighten their grip on the province by attacking government positions and buildings in its capital Ramadi.

In Balad, a town just 70 kilometres (45 miles) north of Baghdad, fighting on Sunday and Monday left nine Shiite militiamen dead, a police lieutenant colonel and a doctor in the local hospital said.

The same sources said three civilians were killed by mortar fire on Monday.

In a separate incident in the city of Tuz Khurmatu, about 160 kilometres (100 miles) north of Baghdad, at least four people were killed and seven wounded in a bomb explosion.

Mayor Shellal Abdul said the blast in the centre of the city targeted people who had been displaced from a nearby village.

A doctor confirmed the toll.

Canadian woman says 'safe' after reports of IS capture
Ottawa (AFP) Dec 01, 2014 - A Canadian woman said to have been captured by jihadists in Syria was apparently safe, according to a post on the woman's Facebook page Monday.

"Guys, I'm totally safe and secure," said the update on Gill Rosenberg's account.

However, the post's authenticity could not be verified.

The Canadian-Israeli dual national who had served in the Israel Defense Forces had volunteered to fight with the Kurds.

Islamic State jihadists claimed a woman described as a "female Zionist soldier" had been captured in the embattled Syrian border town of Kobane, and some jihadists said the woman might be Rosenberg, according to US-based monitoring group SITE.

In the post, Rosenberg said she doesn't have access to the Internet or any communications devices on the battlefield and so cannot reply regularly to emails or social media posts.

She urged supporters to ignore the "bullshit" reports of her kidnapping.

IS jihadists began advancing on Kobane in September, hoping to quickly seize the small town and secure its grip on a large stretch of the Syrian-Turkish border, following advances it made in Iraq.

At one point, it looked set to overrun the town, but Kurdish Syrian fighters, backed by coalition air strikes and an influx of Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces, have held back the group.