"Anbar has been hit badly... More than 1,500 schools have been partially or completely destroyed," Eid Ammash, a spokesman for the provincial council told AFP.

"Most of these schools were targeted directly by the criminal gangs of the ISIL," Ammash said.

"It will take a lot of money and at least two and a half years to rebuild the schools," Ammash said.

He said no area was spared, with damaged schools from Karma, near Baghdad, to Al-Qaim on the Syrian border, as well as in areas around the main cities of Ramadi, Fallujah and Haditha.

Anbar is Iraq's largest province. It has been rocked by violence since the beginning of 2014, months before the ISIL launched a massive nationwide offensive that saw it conquer swathes of Northern Iraq.

It is currently the main focus of the government's efforts to regain lost ground, with large military operations under way in several parts of the province.

Anbar stretches from Iraq's Western borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia all the way East along the Euphrates to the outskirts of Baghdad.