Three suicide bombers killed before attack in Salahuddin
Explosive belt (Representational photo
Tikrit (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi paramilitary forces killed three suicide bombers before carrying out an attack in Salahuddin province, a media official was quoted saying on Tuesday.
Muhannad al-Ezzawi, media officer at al-Salam Corps said in a statement that the force, assisted by a number of civilians, killed three Islamic State suicide bombers late Monday before they could stage an attack against nightclubs in the town of Balad, 130 kilometers south of Tikrit, the province’s capital.
Fighters besieged the militants in the area, to which they responded with mortar firing, according to Ezzawi.
On Monday, al-Salam Corps said it foiled an attempt by IS to detonate electricity pylons in al-Ishaqi island in Salahuddin.
Al-Salam Coprs is the military wing of popular Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s movement.
Islamic State members have escalated their attacks against security forces and civilians inside Salahuddin and on the province’s borders with neighboring Diyala since Iraqi forces launched offensives to retake the group’s holdouts in Mosul in October 2016.
The group’s influence in Iraq is currently shrinking, with Iraqi government troops having recaptured Mosul, their former capital, Tal Afar, their last Nineveh stronghold and preparing to aim at other havens in Kirkuk, Anbar and Salahuddin.