Islamic State claims counterattack

The Islamic State broke an uncharacteristic silence Thursday about the Iraqi military’s threeday-old assault to recapture Ramadi, in western Iraq, asserting that a squad of its suicide “immersers” had stormed a police headquarters near the city in a deadly counterstrike.

In a dispatch marked “urgent” and posted via social media, the Islamic State said the five-member suicide squad ambushed the police officers stationed inside the station, which it identified as the headquarters of the Second Regiment of the Federal Police.

“By the grace of God, they were able to kill many of them and burn a weapons cache and some of their barracks,” said a translation of the dispatch released by the Site Intelligence Group, a research concern in Bethesda, Md., that monitors jihadi postings on the Internet. When survivors tried to escape, the dispatch said, “an explosive device was detonated on a Hummer, which led to eliminating those inside.”

The dispatch described the suicide squad as “five immersers from the soldiers of the caliphate and left unclear how many had died. But it called on “the Almighty to accept our immersing brothers in the highest positions of paradise,” suggesting that at least some of them had been killed.”

There was no immediate comment from the Iraqi military command on the assertions by the Islamic State.