10 Kurd fighters caught in bombing attack
Sinjar (IraqiNews.com) Ten Kurdish Peshmerga fighters were wounded Tuesday in a roadside bomb blast west of Mosul, a senior commander was quoted saying.
Operations commander at the Peshmerga command in Sinjar mountains told Kurdish-run BasNews that ten soldiers sustained mild injuries when a bomb blast hit an area near Shaalan village, a place with a mostly Arab population.
Nobody has claimed responsibility for the blast, but Islamic State militants have been behind hundreds of attacks against Peshmerga forces in Mosul and other provinces.
Peshmerga fighters have been actively involved in the Iraqi government’s campaign against Islamic State militants.
Iraqi government troops recaptured Mosul early July after more than eight months of fighting, marking an effective collapse of the self-styled “caliphate” declared by IS from the city in 2014. The group lost more than 25.000 of its militants in the Mosul campaign.
Iraqi troops gave encountered occasional attacks in Mosul after the city had been retaken. Taking Mosul back, the government troops, backed by paramilitary forces, later recaptured Tal Afar, west of Nineveh, late August.
The government is currently building up for an offensive to retake IS-held town of Hawija, Kirkuk. IS IS still holding more havens in Anbar and Salahuddin provinces.