‘Terrorist’ attack north of Baghdad kills four Iraqi soldiers on Eid: Interior Ministry

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Iraqi Interior Ministry on Tuesday said a ‘terrorist’ attack south of Salahuddin Province, close to Baghdad, resulted in the deaths of four members of the country’s security forces.

The attack against the team that had been deployed to an area in Tarimiya District in Salahuddin followed an improvised explosive device explosion targeting a military vehicle, Iraq’s Security Media Cell said in a statement, early on Eid al-Fitr.

The alleged terrorists gunned down evacuating soldiers by sniper fire, and according to a security source who spoke to Shafaaq, killed four of them. According to the same outlet quoting medical sources, 17 other security members were injured but, so far, the Security Media Cell has confirmed only four deaths.

Following this, security forces launched a counterattack and “killed three terrorists that directed their fire on our forces there,” it said in a follow-up statement.

The Islamic State later reportedly claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Although Iraq declared the military defeat against the Islamic State in December 2017, the terrorist group continues to carry out insurgency-style attacks in formerly liberated areas like Mosul, which it once declared its de-facto capital, and even places it never controlled, like the nation’s capital of Baghdad.

In another attack on the capital itself early May, a suicide bomber exploded his vest at a busy market with preliminary reports claiming at least eight people had been killed while 15 others had been injured.

Editing by Nadia Riva