Security officials report that a bombing in north-central Iraq close to the oil-rich city of Kirkuk has killed at least nine federal police personnel.
On Sunday, a bomb went off near the village of Safra, which is located around 30 kilometers (20 miles) southwest of Kirkuk. Two additional policemen suffered critical injuries.
Following the explosion, “a frontal attack with small guns,” a federal police officer told the AFP news agency.
On its Telegram channel, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attack.
The United States led a global military coalition that overthrew ISIL, which had taken large portions of Iraq and Syria in 2014. In 2019, the armed group lost its last bastion, but its sleeper cells are still conducting assaults in Syria and Iraq.
The hunt for the offenders was ordered by Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, who also urged security personnel to be “vigilant, rigorously scan the routes, and not allow any opportunity for terrorist elements.”
Kirkuk, which is located 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of Baghdad, was taken from Kurdish groups in 2017.
After Iraqi forces fled and ISIL expanded its holdings, the Kurdish Regional Government seized control of the city.
According to a study from the United Nations published in August, ISIL maintains an underground network of 6,000 to 10,000 fighters who are able to launch strikes on both sides of the porous Iraqi-Syrian border.
The latest incident came after a roadside bombing on Wednesday that left three Iraqi soldiers dead after it struck a military vehicle on farmland north of Baghdad, according to the Ministry of Defense. No one organization has taken ownership of that assault.
According to military officials, a second unreported attack in November that killed four soldiers close to Kirkuk occurred at a remote military outpost in the north.
The first such occurrence in the city in more over three years, twin suicide attacks at a Baghdad market in January 2021 claimed responsibility, leaving 32 people dead.
