IEDs kill 2 soldiers, wound 6 in Diyala: official

Diyala (IraqiNews.com) Two Iraqi military soldiers were killed and six others were wounded on Sunday when several IEDs exploded during a security search northeast of Baqubah, an official in Diyala province said.

Awwad al-Rubaie, a member of the security committee at Diyala province, said the casualties belonged to the military battalion of the Iraqi army. He said the servicemen were combing farmlands at Mekheisa village, a militancy hotspot.

Nobody claimed responsibility for the explosions, but Islamic State militants have claimed several bombings and armed attacks against Iraqi civilians and security personnel since the extremist group took over several Iraqi cities in 2014.

The extremist group is currently sustaining losses in personnel and ground in face of Iraqi security forces which, backed by U.S.-led international troops and local paramilitaries, have been fighting IS out of the city of Mosul, the group’s largest bastion in Iraq. Further operations are expected to liberate other Iraqi provinces after the recapture of Mosul, a half of which is now under government troops’ control.

Observers believe that even after IS is beaten out of Mosul, the formerly-proclaimed capital of its so-called “Islamic Caliphate”, the group will still constitute a security threat, with a possibility of shifting to hit-and-run war style.