Suicide blasts, mortar fire kill 17 in Iraq

baghdad — Four suicide bombings targeting Iraqi security forces and civilians and mortar fire that struck houses near Baghdad killed at least 17 people on Monday, security and medical officials said.

The morning attacks also wounded at least 64 people, the sources said.

In the deadliest single attack, a suicide bomber struck a street in the southern port city of Basra, killing five people and wounding 10.

The Daesh group, “after the losses it suffered in western areas, is seeking to move the battle to the southern areas,” where many of the forces fighting the militants are from, Basra Governor Majid Al Nasrawi told journalists.

Daesh overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in 2014, but Iraqi forces backed by US-led air strikes and training have since regained significant ground, most recently in the western province of Anbar.

AFP journalists saw three burned bodies at the scene of the Basra attack — two still inside vehicles, and a third on a stretcher. The blast set vehicles alight and damaged buildings in the area, one of the journalists said.

Another bomber struck a joint police and army checkpoint in north Baghdad, while a third attacked pro-government paramilitaries in Mishahada, north of the capital, and a fourth hit militiamen in a restaurant south of the city of Nasiriyah.

And mortar fire struck houses in Abu Ghraib, killing two people and wounding at least seven, officials said. —