Suicide bomber kills 2 Iraqi troops during anti-IS raid

Two Iraqi soldiers had been killed Tuesday while a suicide bomber blew himself up at some stage in a military raid targeting Islamic State organization militants north of Baghdad, security sources stated.

A trapped militant “detonated his explosives belt, killing a major and soldier, also wounding 3 others”, an interior ministry supply told AFP, asking now not to be named.

A second Islamist militant was killed when he also tried to set off a suicide bomb in the army operation in the region of Tarmiya, the source claimed.

IS overran large swathes of Iraq and neighboring Syria in 2014, declaring a “caliphate”, before Baghdad declared victory in late 2017 after a grinding campaign.

But a low-level jihadist insurgency has persisted, particularly in rural areas north of Baghdad around the city of Kirkuk and in the eastern provinces of Diyala and Salaheddin.

On Tuesday, Iraqi army command spokesman Yahya Rassoul said “43 Islamic State elements” have been killed in a recent operation inside the northern province of Niniveh, of which the former IS bastion Mosul is the capital.

According to a UN record closing year , some 10,000 IS fighters continue to be active in Iraq and Syria.