Two killed, policeman wounded in Mosul explosion
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A bomb apparently targetting a police vehicle went off on the outskirts of Iraq's embattled city of Mosul on Thursday, wounding one of the policemen and killing two civilians.
Captain Amir Watheq from the Nineveh police told Bas News that the bomb was detonated as a police vehicle was passing by on its way to the village of Badush, located northwest of Mosul.
He said, “The security forces sealed off the blast site and carried the bodies to the forensic medicine department and the wounded policeman was transported to a nearby hospital for treatment."
Though no group has of yet claimed responsibility, the attack is consistent with methods and recent strategy of Islamic State fighters (IS) who ruled over Mosul between 2014 and 2017 and often target Iraq's security forces. Bombings, ambushes, and other insurgent-style attacks thought to be carried out by IS remain a constant presence in Iraq's headlines.
On Saturday morning, US-led coalition warplanes repeatedly pounded what is thought to be remnants of the Islamic State (IS) near Makhmour, located outside Mosul.
Two days earlier, the most recent largescale bombing in Nineveh Province occurred when a car bomb went off near a restaurant Iraqi security forces are known to frequent.
Local media said it was the second VBIED (vehicle-borne improvised explosive device) "in less than a week inside Mosul, this time in a crowded area close to Abu Layla restaurant [which] left five injured, three killed.”
The Kurdistan Region Security Council (KRSC) recently warned that acts of terrorism involving car bombs are re-emerging and that assassinations of village leaders and attacks on the local electrical grid remain persistent in Iraq's disputed territories.
The KRSC’s statistics for October indicate “a re-emergence of VBIED-based attacks in Kirkuk and Mosul,” the Kurdish security agency said in a tweet.
A UN report released in early November reported that more than 200 mass graves containing the remains of thousands of victims have been discovered in areas formerly controlled by IS in the provinces of Nineveh, Kirkuk, Salahuddin, and Anbar.
According to casualty figures the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) recorded for October, 69 civilians were killed, and another 105 were injured in acts of terrorism, violence, and armed conflict in the country.