ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — An Iraqi military official said Sunday that the Islamic State was using new approaches to send suicide attackers and that Iraqi forces had foiled two recent suicide attacks.
“During the past two days ISIS militants attempted to use different techniques to send suicide attackers in Ramadi and instead of planting explosives and sending car bombs they used motorcycle suicide attacks to target security and the Iraqi army,” Major General Ismail Mahalawi, the head of the Anbar operations command, said in a press conference.
Mahalawi said the Iraqi army foiled two motorcycle suicide attacks in southern Ramadi and killed three ISIS suicide attackers who aimed to detonate themselves at Iraqi army positions.
“ISIS is defeated in Ramadi and Anbar province completely, and is seeking several ways for revenge,” Mahalawi added.
ISIS seized Ramadi on May 17, 2015 and has controlled most of Anbar—the largest province in Iraq—ever since its lightning assault across Iraq in 2014.
However, Iraqi Defense Minister Khaled al-Obeidi has in recent weeks claimed that Iraqi joint forces have made massive advances from all directions around the Islamic State-held city of Ramadi in Anbar province, and that the provincial capital would soon be liberated from the extremist group.
Some 10,000 Iraqi soldiers, policemen and militants of the Shiite militia group Hashd al-Shaabi and tribal forces have been fighting to clear Anbar province from ISIS since June, but they have not managed to make any significant advances into ISIS-held areas, since operations to take back the province have several times been repulsed by ISIS.
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