Potent threat: IS bombers kill 12 policemen at Iraq’s military base

Seven fighters mounted the attack on base in Tikrit; four were killed, three detonated explosives

TIKRIT, IRAQ: Suicide attackers from the Islamic State group killed at least 12 members of Iraqi forces on Sunday in a brazen attack on police training at a military base, officials said.

A commando of fighters equipped with rifles and suicide vests snuck into Speicher base, near Tikrit, in the middle of the night. Their target was a large group of police forces from Nineveh, a northern province of which Mosul is the capital, who were undergoing training.

“Under the cover of fog, they broke into Speicher,” said Mahmud alSorchi, spokesman for the paramilitary force being set up to take back IS-held Nineveh. "Nineveh police managed to kill seven attackers but three were able to detonate their suicide vests,” he said, adding that three officers were among the 12 policemen killed. He also said 20 policemen were wounded in the attack.

Some security sources told Reuters that 15 policemen were killed in the attack.

Several other security sources in the region confirmed the attack, which was claimed by the Islamic State group. The group said seven suicide attackers managed to enter the huge military base, which lies about 160 kilometres north of Baghdad.

In a statement posted online, IS said its commando reached a centre where 1,200 cadets were being trained, sparking clashes that lasted four hours.

Speicher is located in Salaheddin province, which was one of the regions conquered by IS when it swept across much of Iraq's Sunni Arab heartland in June 2014.

The sprawling military base itself was never fully controlled by the jihadis but at the beginning of their offensive they committed one of the conflict's worst atrocities there.

IS fighters assisted by local insurgents rounded up hundreds of cadets from Speicher, marched them to Tikrit and massacred them in several locations.

Hundreds of bodies were discovered in shallow graves when the Iraqi forces retook Tikrit in April 2015 but other victims were shot and thrown into the Tigris and will likely never be found.

The highest estimates put the number of executed cadets at 1,700.

Security officials said Sunday's raid was launched from the western side of the base, a desert area where IS remains able to operate despite the increased presence of Iraqi forces.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 4^th, 2016.