A senior Iraqi general has been killed by shelling west of Baghdad.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's security spokesman said the general, Najm Abdullah Sudan, "was killed by hostile shelling in Ibrahim bin Ali."

The spokesman, Qassem Atta, said Sudan "met martyrdom on the battlefield as he was fighting...terrorists," but did not give further details.

The town of Ibrahim bin Ali lies in the Abu Ghraib area, west of Baghdad, near where security forces have been locked in a months-long standoff with militants who control Fallujah and parts of nearby Ramadi.

Militants led by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), also known as the Islamic State, swept out of the Fallujah area and across much of northern Iraq last month.

Based on reporting by AFP and AP