ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – A car bomb was detonated at a security checkpoint in Qaim, Anbar province around 9 a.m. on Wednesday, killing 11 and wounding 16, officials have confirmed.
Amed Daiyan told Rudaw several people were killed in the explosion and many wounded. Police Captain Mahmud Jassem told AFP 11 people were killed, five of them members of the security forces.
A further 16 were injured in the blast, most of them civilians.
The suicide attack “was carried out by the remnants and sleeper cells of ISIS,” Daiyan said.
An investigation has been launched and further updates will follow, he added.
Anbar province came under ISIS occupation in 2014 when the group swept across the desert area.
Haider al-Abadi, prime minister of Iraq, announced the liberation of Qaim in November 2017.
Despite Abadi declaring the defeat of ISIS in Iraq in December last year, the group has resurfaced in many Sunni areas, carrying out hit and run operations and suicide attacks.
Between 20,000 and 30,000 Islamic State fighters remain in Iraq and Syria despite the jihadist group’s defeat and a halt in the flow of foreigners joining its ranks, according to a UN report released in mid-August.
In a 54-minute Eid al-Adha message released on Telegram last week, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi urges his followers to “persevere”.
Updated 12.43 p.m.
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