Iraqi army personnel, tribal fighters killed, others injured in suicide attack in Anbar
Smoke is seen as members of the Iraqi Army clash with Islamic State fighters at a frontline in north west of Mosul, Iraq, May 5, 2017. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui
Shafaq News quoted a police source as saying that two suicide attackers blew themselves up at the entrance of a joint headquarters of Iraqi army and the Sunni tribal mobilization forces in al-Karma region, 13 KM east of Fallujah.
The attack, according to the source, left two army personnel and 15 tribal fighters killed, while two army personnel and seven others wounded.
Media channels quoted army general Col. Ahmed al-Dulaimi as saying that the attackers were wearing police uniform. One of them was killed, while the other blew himself up, which left a soldier and tribal mobilization forces personnel killed and others wounded.
“Joint troops of police and army transferred the victims to forensic doctors and the wounded to hospital for treatment,” Dulaimi.
Earlier this week, three IS militants and a policeman were killed in a suicide attack in the city of Hit in Anbar.
Iraqi troops were able to return life back to normal in the biggest cities of Anbar including Fallujah, Ramadi and others after recapturing them. However, Anbar’s western cities of Annah, Qaim and Rawa are still held by the extremist group since 2014, when it emerged to proclaim a self-styled Islamic Caliphate. There has not been an officially-declared military campaign to free those regions, but the province’s military command launched a brief assault early January that managed to recapture some western villages before stopping again.
Violence in the country has surged further with the emergence of Islamic State Sunni extremist militants who proclaimed an “Islamic Caliphate” in Iraq and Syria in 2014.
More than 700 Iraqis were killed and wounded during the month of June as result of violence and armed conflicts, according to a monthly count by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) which excludes security members deaths. Baghdad ranked the second place with 22 deaths and 88 injuries.