K-I R K U K: Police sources said on Sunday that gunmen opened fire on a police vehicle carrying nine officers in northern Iraq, where Islamic State remnants are active.
One of the deadliest attacks in Iraq in recent months, the attack was not immediately claimed by any group.
A vehicle carrying members of Iraq's federal police was struck by the bomb blast in the K-I R K U K area.
On the condition of anonymity, a federal police officer told AFP that it was followed by "a direct attack with small arms" near the village of S H-A L-A L A-L M-T-A R. The officer attributed the assault to IS.
The officer stated, "We are looking for the others. An assailant has been killed".
Nine people have been killed, including two police officers, who were initially reported to have been wounded.
In 2014, IS terrorists seized substantial portions of Iraqi and Syrian territory and declared a "caliphate", where they ruled with brutality until they were defeated by Iraqi forces supported by a US-led military coalition at the end of 2017.
In 2019, IS lost its last Syrian stronghold near the Iraqi border.
The violence was described by Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia A-L S U D-A N-I as a "cowardly terrorist attack".
He stated that security personnel ought to be "vigilant, meticulously inspect the roads, and not provide any opportunity for terrorist elements"
Sleeper Cells
In order to aid in the fight against the terrorists, approximately 2,500 American soldiers are present in the nation. However, IS cells continued to operate in a number of Iraqi regions.
A bomb exploded on Wednesday as a patrol vehicle in T-A R M-I Y-A, a rural municipality about 30 kilometers north of Baghdad, passed through farmland, killing three Iraqi soldiers and injuring three others.
The bombing in a known hotspot for IS sleeper cells was not immediately blamed.
A military source claimed that four soldiers were killed in a machine gun attack on a remote northern Iraqi military post near K-I R K U R last month. No immediate claim of responsibility was made.
IS fighters' deaths in airstrikes and raids are frequently reported, and Iraqi security forces continue to conduct counterterrorism operations against the group.
A United Nations report from January stated that the group has maintained its ability to launch attacks at a steady pace, despite the setbacks that have rendered IS a shadow of its former self.
The UN assesses the assailant association keeps up with somewhere in the range of 6,000 and 10,000 warriors inside Iraq and Syria, taking advantage of the permeable boundary between the two nations and gathering mostly in country regions
Illegal Drugs Torched
Meanwhile, in what officials described as the nation's largest destruction in more than a decade, Iraq burned some six tonnes of illegal drugs on Sunday, including enormous piles of cannabis and cocaine.
The drugs were stacked in holes dug into the sand, doused with fuel, and set on fire by government officials wearing white face masks and coveralls.
Speaking at the event outside a military base near Baghdad, Health Minister S-A L-E H A-L H-A S N-A W-I said it was the first "destruction operation of this magnitude" since 2009.
He stated that Iraqi forces had seized the drugs at border crossings and other locations, and some of them had been stored for years.
With near-daily announcements of drug seizures and trafficker arrests, security forces have intensified narcotics operations in recent years.
Crystal methamphetamine and other narcotics have emerged as major trafficking routes along Iran's border.
A government official stated that the stocks of 350 kilograms of cocaine and 54 million pills, including five million pills of the amphetamine-type stimulant C-A P T-A G O N, were set ablaze, producing enormous black smoke clouds. Hashish and crystal methamphetamine were also eradicated
You must be logged in to post a comment.