ISIS car bomb south of Mosul breaks the post-ISIS calm

A bombing rocked a market area in the town of Qayyara, south of Mosul. Initial reports listed dozens killed and wounded. Images from the scene showed destroyed and burned cars and people fleeing burning debris.

Mosul was liberated from Islamic State in July 2017 and has been free from major terrorist attacks in the last year. Qayyarah, where the bombing took place was liberated in August of 2016 and has been mostly peaceful for the last two years. However Iraqi security forces have been discovering ISIS members and arms caches left behind by ISIS in the last six months. The Iraqi Federal police and counter-terror units have carried out a number of operations south of Mosul, in some cases clashing with ISIS members in the desert.

According to Baxtiyar Goran, from the nearby Kurdistan region, the car bomb struck the Qiyyara sub-district south of Mosul and killed 6 people, injuring 40. David Witty who follows Iraqi security issues wrote that blood donations were needed. The last attack near Mosul was on October 17 when an improvised explosive device (IED) killed the director of a local water utility on the road from Qayyara to Shirqat. The roads south of Qayyara near Hawija and elsewhere in Salah-a-Din province an neighboring Kirkuk and Diyala have been plagued by hit-and-run ISIS attacks and insecurity. However large car bombings have been rare.

Source: JPost