9 IRAQI SECURITY PERSONNEL, CIVILIANS DEAD IN ISIS AMBUSH

Sun 22 November 2020:

Six Iraqi security personnel and three civilians were killed in an ambush Saturday carried out by ISIS north of Baghdad, police and a local official said.

A police source said a roadside bomb hit a car and that extremists opened fire on a rescue team of policemen and Popular Mobilization Forces when they arrived at the scene, about 200 kilometers from the capital.

Four PMF members and two policemen died along with three civilians, Mohammed Zidane, the mayor of Zouiya, 50 kilometers from the city of Tikrit, told AFP.

He updated an earlier civilian death toll of two.

Both the mayor and police said the ambush was the work of ISIS militants, although no immediate claim of responsibility was issued.

Eleven people were killed on November 8 in an ISIS attack on a lookout post at Al-Radwaniyah, near Baghdad airport on the outskirts of the capital.

ISIS sleeper cells have continued to wage hit-and-run attacks on security forces and state infrastructure, particularly in desert areas where troops are stretched thin.

Attacks with high tolls and close to the capital have been rare, however.