At least seven people have been killed in three separate attacks on the northern outskirts of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, over the past few hours. RNA - Security sources said on Sunday that the overnight attacks targeted the homes of tribal fighters belonging to pro-government Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), known in Arabic as Hashd al-Sha’abi, as well as army barracks in the suburb of Tarmiya.
“Unidentified gunmen attacked the home of a member of the tribal Hashd, killing him, his wife, his son, and mother,” an unnamed police officer said.
A separate attack overnight saw sniper fire hitting an army barracks, killing two members of the security forces, the source added.
And at dawn on Sunday, an assault targeted another tribal Hashd member’s home, killing one.
On Sunday afternoon, security forces announced they had killed one would-be bomber in a village in the same region.
Tarmiya has long been a bastion of the sleeper cells of the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group, which has been militarily defeated in Iraq but which continues to conduct singular attacks.
Daesh launched a major terror offensive in Iraq in 2014, overrunning swathes of territory. Iraqi government forces and allied fighters then launched operations to eliminate the terror outfit and retake lost territory. Iraq declared the end of the anti-Daesh campaign in December 2017.
Iraqi forces have now launched a major operation to hunt down the remnants of Daesh in an area of the country’s western province of Anbar and the central and northern regions of Salahuddin and Nineveh.
Last month, Iraqi government forces also carried out separate clean-up operations against the remnants of Daesh across the country, killing dozens of the extremists in the process.
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