Iraqi police arrest ISIS member charged in three car bombings
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Local police in Nineveh Province said that they arrested a member of the Islamic State for alleged participation in three separate bombings both inside and outside the city of Mosul, once a capital of the terrorist group’s self-proclaimed caliphate.
The suspect was arrested at the al-Badi area, located in westernmost Nineveh near the Syrian border, according to a police statement published on Wednesday.
The police claimed the detainee was “involved in bringing car bombs [into the province] that targeted the Abu Layla restaurant on the right side of the city of Mosul and Qayyarah town market south of the city of Mosul and the market in Tal Afar.”
The three incidents took place late last year, cumulatively resulting in close to twenty deaths and many more injuries, initial casualty reports indicated.
The Islamic State has reportedly not claimed responsibility for the bombings, although security forces blamed the terrorist group, which has said it was behind other attacks in the provinces of Kirkuk, Diyala, and others.
Many local security officials, civilians, administrative officials have hinted that the last two blasts in Mosul may have been related to political disputes between opposing figures, while others said that the Islamic State deliberately does not claim responsibility in a move aimed at fabricating tension in the region.
But Nineveh police said in its statement that the captured individual had “confessed during preliminary and judicial investigations that he was the one who detonated the vehicles” by using a mobile phone.
Police gave no further details.
Although militarily defeated in Iraq in December 2017, the Islamic State continues to wage an insurgency in several provinces across the country through suicide bombings, roadside explosions, ambushes, and kidnappings.
On Wednesday, Islamic State members ambushed an Iraqi federal police vehicle in Kirkuk Province, killing a ranked officer and injuring two of his subordinates. The gunmen carried out the attack in broad daylight, marking the latest such incident believed to have been perpetrated by the Islamic State in the disputed province of Kirkuk.
Editing by John J. Catherine