In the country’s north, close to the city of Kirkuk, a bomb and small-arms attack occurred, according to police sources.
In a bomb attack on their convoy on Sunday near the oil city of Kirkuk, at least nine Iraqi federal policemen were killed, according to the Islamic State (IS) group, which made the claim on its Telegram channel.
According to two security sources who spoke to Reuters, the blast happened close to the village of Safra, which is located in the Kurdistan region and is about 30 kilometers (20 miles) southwest of Kirkuk. They also said that two other policemen were seriously injured.
According to AFP, a truck carrying the men was the initial target of the bombing, according to police and government sources.
Under the condition of anonymity, a federal police officer told AFP that it was followed by “a direct attack with small arms” close to the village of Chalal al-Matar.
Two policemen were also injured in the attack, the officer said, adding, “An attacker has been killed, and we are looking for the others.”.
An official from the interior ministry in Baghdad confirmed the attack and reported that one officer and seven police were killed.
Beginning in 2014, IS seized sizable portions of Iraqi and Syrian territory, establishing a “caliphate,” where they brutally ruled until they were routed by Iraqi forces supported by a US-led military coalition in late 2017.
In 2019, the militant group’s final stronghold in Syria—close to the Iraqi border—was lost, but IS relics are still active in a number of locations throughout Iraq.
Approximately 2,500 American soldiers are still stationed there as trainers, despite the anti-IS coalition led by the US continuing to fight in Iraq until December of last year.
The security forces in Baghdad are still engaged in counterterrorism operations against the militant organization, and it is regularly reported that airstrikes and ground raids have claimed the lives of IS fighters.
UN report
According to a UN report published this year, despite the setbacks that have reduced IS to a shell of its former self, the organization can still call on an underground network of between 6,000 and 10,000 fighters to carry out attacks on both sides of the porous Iraqi-Syrian border.
Three Iraqi soldiers were killed on Wednesday in farmland north of Baghdad when a roadside bomb struck a military vehicle.
The bombing in a location where IS sleeper cells are known to congregate was not immediately claimed.
Four soldiers were killed last month in a machine-gun attack on a remote military outpost in northern Iraq, according to a military source. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
The first such attack in the city in more than three years occurred in January 2021 when two suicide bombers attacked a market in Baghdad, killing 32 people. IS immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
