BAGHDAD: A suicide bomber killed at least 27 Shia militiamen outside the Iraqi town of Jurf Al Sakhar yesterday after security forces pushed Islamic State militants out of the area over the weekend, army and police sources said.
The attacker, driving a Humvee vehicle packed with explosives and likely stolen from defeated government troops, also wounded 60 Shia militiamen, who had helped government forces retake the town just south of the capital.
Iraqis are bracing for more sectarian attacks on Shias, who are preparing for the religious festival of Ashura. Violence has in the past marred the run up to the event, which will take place next week, and the festival itself.
Yesterday night, a car bomb killed at least 15 people in central Baghdad, police and medical sources said. The attack took place on a street with shops and restaurants in Karrada district, home to both Sunnis and Shias as well as other sects and ethnic groups.
Holding Jurf Al Sakhar is critical for Iraqi security forces, who finally managed to drive out the Sunni insurgents after months of fighting. It could also allow Iraqi forces to sever Islamic State connections to their strongholds in western Anbar province and stop them infiltrating the mainly Shia south.
The group has threatened to march on Baghdad, home to special forces and thousands of Shi’ite militias expected to put up fierce resistance if the capital comes under threat.
Gains against Islamic State are often fragile even with the support of US air strikes on militant targets in Iraq and neighbouring Syria. The United States led nearly a dozen air strikes against Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq on Sunday and yesterday, including the besieged Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobane, according to the US military.
As Iraqi government soldiers and militias savoured their victory and were taking photographs of Islamic State corpses on Sunday, mortar rounds fired by Islamic State fighters who had fled to orchards to the west rained down on Jurf Al Sakhar. The rounds hit the militiamen, killing dozens and scattering body parts, witnesses said.
The next significant fighting near Baghdad is expected to take place just to the west in the Sunni heartland Anbar province.
The town of Amriyat Al Falluja has been surrounded by Islamic State militants on three sides for weeks. Security officials say government forces are gearing up for an operation designed to break the siege.
Gains in the Islamic State stronghold of Anbar could raise the morale of Iraqi troops after they collapsed in the face of a lighting advance by the insurgents in the north in June.
Kurdish peshmerga fighters also made advances over the weekend against Islamic State. Much attention is focused on the planned deployment of peshmerga to Kobane, where fellow Kurds have been fending off an attack by Islamic State for 40 days.
Iraqi Kurdish officials and a member of the Kurdish administration in Syria said the peshmerga had been due to head to Kobani via Turkey on Sunday but their departure had been postponed.
Iraqi Kurdish forces will not engage in ground fighting in the Syrian town of Kobane but provide artillery support for fellow Kurds there, a Kurdish spokesman has said.
Islamic State fighters have been trying to capture Kobane for over a month, pressing on despite US-led air strikes on their positions and the deaths of hundreds of their fighters.Reuters
