One child among seven wounded in the latest Salahuddin bombing

A motorcycle bombing in a disputed town in Iraq’s Salahuddin Province wounded several civilians, a security source said on Monday, in the latest such incident to rock the area amid nationwide measures to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The source told Kurdistan 24 that at least seven civilians were wounded when a bomb-laden motorbike exploded. The incident occurred in a popular marketplace in the middle of Tuz Khurmatu, which is an ethnically-diverse area the control over which is contested by the federal Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

The explosion occurred Monday morning.

The national military communications center, known as the Security Media Cell, described it as a “terrorist attack.” It said in a statement that a child was among the wounded, and all were transported to a hospital.

No group has claimed responsibility for the bombing, but sleeper cells of the so-called Islamic State have occasionally carried out such attacks along with other insurgency-style operations.

The terrorist organization’s activities continue despite the passage of over two years since the Iraqi government declared a final victory over it after the group’s territorial collapse in late 2017.

Last week, Islamic State remnants carried out an armed assault on a military unit made up of Iraqi soldiers and Hashd al-Shaabi militias, killing three members in total, according to a security source.

On March 9, Iraq’s military communications center announced that anti-terrorism forces, backed by the US-led coalition against ISIS, killed 25 members of the terrorist group in an extended combat operation south of the disputed district of Makhmour in Nineveh Province.

Shortly after, the US Department of Defense said that two American soldiers had been killed in the military operation.

Source: Kurdistan 24