Tribal fighter killed, 2 wounded in southern Baghdad blast
An explosion in Baghdad.
The independent Iraqi Media News Agency quoted a security source saying that one member of the Sunni-led Tribal Mobilization, a group fighting Islamic State militants, was killed and two others were wounded when a bomb exploded in their patrol in Hour al-Basha, south of the capital.
Violence and armed conflicts left 824 Iraqis dead and wounded during the month of May, according to a monthly count by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq which excludes security members deaths. Baghdad alone sustained 86 deaths and 226 injuries, according to UNAMI.
Baghdad has seen almost daily bombings and armed attacks against security members, paramilitary groups and civilians since the Iraqi government launched a wide-scale campaign to retake IS-occupied areas in 2016. While most of of the explosions went without a claim of responsibility, Islamic State has claimed several blasts.
The Iraqi government, currently focused on ousting the group from Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, is expected to aim at other IS holdouts.
Some security observers believe that even after IS’s main havens across Iraqi provinces are conquered, the group may still constitute a security threat through sleeper cells and lone wolf attacks. They believe attacks outside Mosul are designed to make up for the group’s losses there.