Three Iraqi soldiers were killed and three injured on Wednesday when a bomb exploded as their patrol vehicle drove through an agricultural area north of Baghdad, security forces said.
The attack, which was not immediately claimed, took place in the orchards of Tarmiya, a rural community some thirty kilometers north of the capital where jihadist cells from the Islamic State (EI) group are still active.
Originally, a security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, had “reported the explosion of a bomb planted by the roadside during a patrol in the Tarmiya region.”
A lieutenant colonel at the head of an infantry unit and two soldiers were killed “in a bomb explosion,” the Ministry of Defense confirmed in a press release.
Three soldiers were also injured, according to another press release from a media cell of the security forces.
In 2017, Iraq declared its military victory against ISIS, but jihadists remain active in several areas of the country. In Tarmiya, they use bushes, palm groves, and other ditches to hide and launch sporadic attacks, particularly against law enforcement.
Iraqi security forces are conducting counter-terrorism operations and combing the areas where ISIS has a presence. They regularly announce the deaths of dozens of jihadists in airstrikes or raids.
After a meteoric rise in Iraq and neighboring Syria in 2014 and the seizure of vast territories, ISIS saw its self-proclaimed “caliphate” fall under the blow of successive offensives in those two countries in 2017 and 2019 respectively. .
Despite his escape, “IS maintained its ability to launch attacks at a steady pace,” confirmed a UN report released in January 2022.
The jihadist organization, which “exploits the porous border” between Iraq and Syria, would “retain between 6,000 and 10,000 fighters in those two countries, where it forms cells and trains agents,” according to the report.