A auto bomb attack kills at least seven people and injures 11 others at an area to the north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.
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Six police and two civilians were killed and 11 people wounded by the July 13 suicide bombing at a checkpoint in Rashidiya, just north of Baghdad. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they are not authorized to talk to the media.
While no one immediately took credit for the attack, it bore the hallmark of other similar attacks carried out by the Islamic State in Iraq.
The latest spate of attacks began with the most deadly on 3 July when a detonated bomb killed 292 people in Baghdad’s Karrada neighbourhood, a busy shopping district. A massive truck bombing struck a bustling commercial area in a Baghdad’s predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Karada, killing 292 people – one of the deadliest attacks since the 2003 USA -led invasion.
Up to 23 other people were wounded in the attack, while two separate bombings elsewhere in Baghdad also killed four people. Police were forced to shut down several major roads around Baghdad as a result of the attack. Gen. Saad Maan, said the troops were “practicing for a planned military parade for a specific occasion”.
ISIS has been weakened in Iraq and Syria in recent months because of battlefield losses and desertions, and some analysts have suggested that the group is in danger of losing its so-called caliphate, territory controlled by the group that stretches from eastern Syria to western Iraq.
According to al-Moamen, Iraqi soldiers were among the casualties in the attack.
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In a USA -backed offensive, the Iraqi army retook the city of Ramadi from Daesh this year, and more recently Falluja, which the government said had been a launchpad for the group’s Baghdad suicide bombings.
