Daesh Attack Kills 13 Iraqi Police

TEHRAN (IQNA) – Thirteen Iraqi policemen were killed in a Daesh terrorist group attack against a checkpoint in the country's north early Sunday, security and medical sources said.

The attack, in the region of Al-Rashad around 65 kilometers (40 miles) south of Kirkuk city, took place just after midnight, a senior Iraqi police officer told AFP.

"Members of the Daesh (group) targeted a federal police checkpoint," said the officer, who did not want to be named.

"Thirteen were killed and three wounded" among the security forces, the officer added.

A medical source based in Kirkuk confirmed the toll.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Daesh seized swathes of Iraq in a lightning offensive in 2014, before being beaten back by a counter-insurgency campaign.

The Iraqi government declared the terror group defeated in late 2017, but they retain sleeper cells which continue to hit security forces with asymmetric attacks.

Terrorist cells regularly target the Iraqi army and police in northern Iraq, but this attack was one of the most deadly this year.

A July 19 bombing claimed by Daesh officially killed 30 people in the Al-Woheilat market in Sadr City, a Shia suburb of Baghdad.