Car bomb south of Mosul shatters post-ISIS calm

A car bomb on Tuesday rocked a market area in the town of Qayyarah, south of Mosul. Initial reports listed dozens killed and wounded. Images from the scene showed destroyed and burned cars and people fleeing burning debris.

Mosul was liberated from Islamic State in July 2017 and has been free from major terrorist attacks in the last year. Qayyarah, where the bombing took place, was liberated in August of 2016 and has been mostly peaceful for the last two years. However, Iraqi security forces have been discovering ISIS members and arms caches left behind by the extremist group in the last six months. The Iraqi Federal Police and counter-terrorism units have carried out a number of operations south of Mosul, in some cases clashing with ISIS members in the desert.

The car bomb in the Qayyarah sub-district south of Mosul killed six people and injured 40, according to Baxtiyar Goran from the nearby Kurdistan region. David Witty, who follows Iraqi security issues, wrote that blood donations were needed. The last attack near Mosul was on October 17, when an improvised explosive device killed the director of a local water utility while he was traveling on the road from Qayyarah to Shirqat. The roads south of Qayyarah near Hawija and elsewhere in Salah-a-Din province, and neighboring Kirkuk and Diyala, have been plagued by hit-and-run ISIS attacks and insecurity. However, large car bombings have been rare.