Iraq's defence minister predicted Saturday that security forces backed by US-led coalition air strikes would retake full control of the city of Ramadi by the end of the year.

"I met with the Joint Operations Command and they confirmed to me that we will regain all of the city of Ramadi by the end of this month," Khaled al-Obeidi told reporters in Baghdad.

Earlier this month, forces led by Iraq's elite counter-terrorism service retook Al-Tameem, a southwestern neighbourhood of Ramadi from the Islamic State group.

IS took full control of Ramadi in mid-May, in what was Baghdad's most stinging defeat since it launched a counter-offensive to regain the large regions the jihadists captured in the summer of 2014.

The offensive in Al-Tameem this month marked a significant step in long-delayed efforts to recapture the city, around 100 kilometres (60 miles) west of Baghdad and capital of the vast province of Anbar.

"The reason the battle took so long was to avoid casualties among our forces and also to avoid civilian casualties," Obeidi said. "There are still many civilians in the city."

Jihadists still holed up in the city centre and using tunnels to avoid air strikes may number no more than 300, according to military officials.

IS fighters attacking from northwest of Ramadi with suicide car bombs attempted to retake control of the key Palestine bridge in recent days but Iraqi forces still have the upper hand.

"The city of Ramadi has now been fully isolated, and the Iraqi security forces are beginning to conduct their clearing operations," the coalition's Baghdad-based spokesman, Colonel Steve Warren, told reporters on Friday.

He said that IS had been using the Euphrates river that runs through Ramadi to supply its fighters inside the city with men and military equipment.

Control of both sides of the river banks in key areas have significantly reduced the jihadist organisation's ability to re-supply, Warren said.

About 200 IS jihadists killed in Iraq offensive: US
Washington (AFP) Dec 18, 2015 – Some 200 Islamic State jihadists were killed by US-led coalition aircraft during an intense battle in Iraq this week, a US military spokesman said Friday.

Baghdad-based Colonel Steve Warren, who represents the US-led coalition that is attacking the IS group in Iraq and Syria, said about 500 jihadists had carried out an offensive against Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces in the northern province of Nineveh on Wednesday.

Coalition aircraft from five nations responded and dropped nearly 100 bombs during the overnight fight, he added.

"Air power alone killed nearly 200 of them, about 187 by last count," Warren told Pentagon reporters in a video call.

"So, a significant blow to this enemy. And then, of course, ground forces. We don't have a good count yet for how much damage the pesh (peshmerga) were able to inflict on this enemy during the course of this fairly long battle. But we know it was significant."

The multi-pronged IS offensive saw jihadist fighters target several areas including a base housing Turkish soldiers that has been at the heart of a bitter dispute between Baghdad and Ankara.

Peshmerga forces repelled coordinated attacks in Nawaran, Bashiqa, Tal Aswad, Khazr and Zardik, the Kurdistan Regional Security Council (KRSC) has said.

Warren said much of the fighting took place in Tal Aswad.

The KRSC, which is headed by de facto regional president Massud Barzani's son Masrour, previously said that more than 70 IS members were killed in the attacks.

Warren said Canadian special operations troops, who are in Iraq to help train Kurdish fighters, helped in the fight on the ground.