17 September 2017•Update: 18 September 2017
NINEVEH, Iraq
At least 15 people were killed, mostly Sunni-Arab volunteer fighters, when a bomb went off in a school in western Mosul, an Iraqi military source said Sunday.
“Fifteen people were killed, including 12 tribal fighters, and another 23 injured when a bomb went off inside a school in the village of Muharibeen, located between the town of Badosh and the Tal Afar district,” Army Captain Dergham Haydar al-Mawla told Anadolu Agency.
According to al-Mawla, the school had been used to train members of Iraq’s Hashd al-Ashaeri, a pro-government fighting force composed mainly of armed Sunni tribesmen.
Tasked with protecting villages in the area, the Hashd al-Ashaeri also fights alongside the Iraqi army’s 73rd Brigade.
Al-Mawla did not speculate as to what group was responsible for Sunday’s attack.
In a related development late Saturday, at least three people were killed -- including a policeman -- in a suicide attack in Iraq’s eastern Diyala province, according to a local security source.
“Police surrounded a suicide bomber who had infiltrated the town of Miqdadiyah, located some 45 kilometers northeast of Baqubah, Diyala’s provincial capital,” Police Captain Habib al-Shammari told Anadolu Agency.
The attack, he said, had left one police officer and a civilian passerby dead, in addition to the bomber.
No group has claimed responsibility for either attack, but such bombings are typically attributed to the Daesh terrorist group, which -- despite a string of recent defeats -- still maintains a considerable presence war-torn in Iraq.
Last month, Daesh was driven from Tal Afar in the northern Nineveh province. And a month before that, the city of Mosul -- regional capital of Nineveh and Daesh’s self-proclaimed “caliphate” -- fell to the army after a nine-month siege.
