According to security sources told Reuters agency, at least eight Iraqi federal police officers were killed in a bomb attack near Kirkuk, Iraq’s north-central metropolis.
According to sources, those killed on Sunday were in a convoy when the bomb exploded.
The explosion occurred in the village of Safra, which is around 30 kilometres (20 miles) southwest of Kirkuk. Two more officers were seriously hurt.
According to the AFP news agency, “a direct attack with small arms” followed the blast.
Although no one has claimed responsibility, ISIL (ISIS) militants are active in the area.
Kirkuk, 238 km from Baghdad, was taken from Kurdish troops in 2017 by Iraqi security forces.
After Iraqi soldiers departed during the growth of ISIL (ISIS) in the country, the Kurdish Regional Government took control of the city.
ISIS captured significant areas of Iraqi and Syrian territory beginning in 2014, declaring a “caliphate” over which they ruled brutally until their destruction in late 2017 by Iraqi forces backed by a US-led military coalition.
The group’s remnants are still active in various parts of Iraq.
According to a UN report issued in August, the group has an underground network of 6,000 to 10,000 fighters capable of carrying out strikes on both sides of the porous Iraq-Syria border.
According to the defence ministry, the latest incident followed an attack on Wednesday in which a roadside bomb hit a military vehicle, killing three Iraqi soldiers in countryside north of Baghdad. There was no claim of responsibility for the incident.
According to military sources, another unclaimed strike on a remote northern Iraqi military post in November killed four soldiers near Kirkuk.
ISIS had previously claimed responsibility for twin suicide attacks at a Baghdad market in January 2021 that killed 32 people, the first such incident in the capital in more than three years.
