Iraqi security forces and Shiite militia fighters struggled to advance on Saturday into the two towns of al-Alam and al-Dour near Tikrit, their progress slowed by fierce defense from Islamic State (IS) militants.
“We are facing a strong resistance from terrorist groups and we are trying to surround Daesh inside al-Alam and al-Dour and cut all supply routes for them,” al-Alam Mayor Laith al-Jubouri said, referring to the IS fighters.
Army and militia fighters entered the southern and eastern parts of al-Dour on Friday. Commanders said at the time that the town had been completely recaptured, but officials said only parts of it had been retaken.
Canada said one of its soldiers was killed in a friendly fire incident, the first fatality for the country during its current military mission in Iraq. Three other Canadian soldiers were wounded.
The soldiers were with Canada’s special operations forces and were mistakenly engaged by Iraqi Kurdish forces following their return to an observation post from behind the front lines, the Canadian Department of National Defence said in a statement.
Elsewhere in Iraq, suicide and car bomb attacks killed at least 19 people on Saturday, police and medical sources said.
The deadliest attack took place in the northern town of Tuz Khormato, where a car bomb blast followed by a suicide attack killed eight people and wounded 32 in the town center, police and medical sources said.
A bomb exploded near local government and political party headquarters in the town, and after passersby gathered, a suicide attacker blew himself up among the crowd, one police officer said.
In a separate incident, four mortars hit Baghdad’s southern neighborhood of Arab Jibor, killing two people, police said. A bomb blast killed one person in the capital’s northern Shaab neighborhood.
Three people were killed and 11 wounded when a bomb struck a bus in the district of New Baghdad, police said.
In the town of Khan Bani Saad, north of Baghdad, a parked car bomb exploded near a soccer match, killing two people.
In the western province of Anbar, a suicide bomber driving an army Humvee vehicle packed with explosives attacked a police post near the border crossing with Jordan, killing three policemen and wounding three, local security officials said.
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