Twelve people were killed on Saturday when attackers targeted a police checkpoint north of Tikrit and then detonated a vehicle bomb at the entrance to the city 7km down the road, Iraqi police and military sources said.
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Colonel Mohammed al-Jabouri, a spokesman for the police force in Saladin province, said the the local police chief and head of the provincial security committee were visiting the second checkpoint at the time of the attack, but both escaped unharmed.
Minutes later, another suicide bomber detonated his auto near the convoy of Sheikh Jasim al-Jebara, head of the security committee of Salahudin provincial council.
Nearly at the same time, another group of militants on foot attacked a check point at the eastern edge of the province, killing four policemen and wounding two others, he added.
“Four policemen and one militant were killed in ensuing clashes at the checkpoint”, he said.
The governor of Salahuddin province, Ahmed al-Jabouri, vowed to “retaliate for the martyrs by chopping off the heads of Daesh [Isis]” militants. The Sunni extremists frequently launch attacks targeting Iraq’s security forces and civilians in public areas.
He reiterated the pledge for the liberation by year-end of the northern city of Mosul, which fell to Daesh in 2014 and has been called the group’s so-called headquarters in Iraq.
Tikrit was retaken from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – ISIL also known as ISIS – in April 2015. The city, about 360 kilometers northwest of Baghdad, is the last major IS urban stronghold in Iraq.
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It was also the first city to be recaptured by Iraqi forces, which are now preparing for a push on Mosul, the last IS-held city in the country. The attack came days after Iraqi government forces recaptured the town of al-Shirqat, north of Tikrit, from militants.
