Four jihadist attacks claimed the lives of eighteen Iraqis, between Thursday April 28 and Saturday 1er May, security sources told Agence France-Presse (AFP). These attacks, which mainly killed soldiers, occurred in particular in the great belt of Baghdad.
In the agricultural suburb of Tarmiya, twenty kilometers north of the capital, “Jihadists stormed an Iraqi army convoy on Thursday evening and killed two officers and two soldiers”, reported a first security official, on condition of anonymity. When reinforcements arrived, they in turn came under fire that fatally affected “An officer and two soldiers”, as well as a fighter belonging to a tribal group integrated into the regular forces and “A civilian caught in the crossfire”, he added.
At the same time, in the region ofAltun Kupri, north of Baghdad, which the federal government and the Kurds are fighting over, “Six Kurdish fighters were killed, Another local security official told AFP, also on condition of anonymity. Fighters from the Islamic State group attacked (their) position with small arms. “
No claims
Another deadly attack took place in the western desert bordering Syria, a third official said. “An officer and a soldier were killed in the explosion of a bomb during the passage of an army convoy in Akachat “, he said.
Finally, in the province of Diyala, which borders Baghdad to the east, one soldier died in a bomb blast, while two other fighters were injured in a separate attack, another official said.
None of these attacks have been claimed by the Islamic State group, but their modus operandi has become distinctive of the jihadists in Iraq. The group, which lost the territory it held in the country at the end of 2017, now operates only at night, in remote areas and with small arms, almost systematically targeting the security forces.
After the recent attacks, the country’s president, Barham Saleh, again pleaded on Saturday for “Strengthen international support to put an end to residues” of ISIS. A US-led military coalition has been in Iraq since 2014 to help fight ISIS, but a vote in parliament last year called for the departure of all foreign troops from the country.