At least nine police officers have been killed in a bomb and gun attack in northern Iraq. The attack took place near the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, about 290km (180 miles) from the capital Baghdad on Sunday. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility.
IS has already said it was behind the planting of a roadside bomb that killed three Iraqi soldiers near Baghdad on Wednesday. Sunday’s attack began when a bomb blast targeted a truck carrying police near the village of Chalal al-Matar, officials told AFP.
The blast was followed by “a direct attack with small arms”. An assailant has been killed and we are looking for the others,” the official added, saying that two policemen were also wounded in the attack. An official from the Ministry of the Interior in Baghdad confirmed the attack.
IS once held 88,000 sq km (34,000 sq miles) of territory stretching from eastern Iraq to western Syria and imposed its brutal rule on almost eight million people.
But Iraqi forces declared victory over the Islamist group in December 2017, after its troops drove IS militants from the Syrian border zone where the Islamists’ final strongholds had been.
The group was driven from its last territory in 2019, but the UN warned in July that it remained a persistent threat.
It is estimated to have between 6,000 and 10,000 fighters in Syria and Iraq, who are based mostly in rural areas and continue to carry out hit-and-run attacks, ambushes and roadside bombings.
In its report, the UN observed that despite “significant leadership losses,” the group has been able to “exploit security gaps and conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism to recruit and to organise and execute complex attacks
Source: BBC
In other news – Sharon Osbourne Released From Hospital After Health Scare
Sharon Osbourne is on the road to recovery. The former The Talk co-host was released from a hospital and is recuperating at home following her treatment for a medical emergency that she suffered Dec. 16 on the set of a TV project she was filming at the Glen Tavern Inn in Santa Paula, Calif.
The 70-year-old’s son and co-star Jack Osbourne, who was with her, issued an update on her condition on his Instagram Story. Learn more
