ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A wave of bombings and suicide attacks killed more than 50 people across Iraq on Sunday including at least 15 Peshmerga veterans in Qara Tapah in Diyala province, which is close to the Iranian border and where ISIS militants have been battling Kurdish and Iraqi government forces. Further south, the fragility of Anbar province, which some analysts say is close to falling under ISIS control, was underscored by the killing of the police commander, General Ahmad Sadak al-Dulaymi. He was killed in the village of al-Bu Risha, 15 kilometres west of the city of Ramadi, when suspected ISIS fighters targeted his convoy with two improvised explosive devices. Also, two improvised explosive devices detonated at a local market in the Dur al-Dhubat district in southern Baquba, killing six civilians and wounding 10. In the Qara Tapah attack, three car bomb blasts targeted key buildings in the Kurdish-controlled Iraqi town that is close to Jalawla, north-east of Baghdad, said Wahab Ahmed, mayor. The death toll from the three bombings was at least 43 and likely to rise, a KDP official told Halo Muhammad, a Rudaw reporter on the scene. The 15 Peshmerga dead were disabled veterans. There was no claim of responsibility but the attacks took place in an area which the Peshmerga had retaken from ISIS in recent weeks. The attacks were close to the Peshmerga veterans affairs bureau and the final death toll was likely to include other Peshmerga veterans who had volunteered to fight ISIS. The three car bombs targeted the mayor’s office, a building used by the Kurds' asayesh internal security service, and an office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, said the mayor, who was lightly wounded in the attack On Saturday, explosions in Shiite areas of Baghdad killed at least 34 and wounded 54, according to police and medical sources. In one of the attacks, a suicide car bomb exploded at a police checkpoint guarding Kadhimiyah, a neighbourhood in the capital’s northwest that is home to one of the holiest shrines in Shiite Islam. According to AFP, more than 250 people have been killed this month in Iraq. Last month, the United Nations said more than 1,110 people were killed. American officials quoted by AFP have said that Anbar is “fragile” amid fears the province could fall under ISIS within the next couple of weeks unless Kurdish and Iraqi government forces manage to push them back. US-led coalition air strikes have so far failed to push back ISIS and military analysts say greater force on the ground is needed in both Iraq and Syria. On Tuesday, Martin Demsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, will discuss strategy when he hosts his military counterpart chiefs from the more than 20 countries involved in the battle against ISIS at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington.
