Suicide car bomb attack at Iraqi checkpoint kills at least seven

The bombing in Qaim district, 340 km west of the capital Baghdad, also wounded 16 people – 11 civilians and five security personnel. Daesh claimed responsibility for the attack.

Iraqi soldiers patrol along the border between Syria and Iraq in Anbar province, Iraq, on July 20, 2012.
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Iraqi soldiers patrol along the border between Syria and Iraq in Anbar province, Iraq, on July 20, 2012.

At least seven people were killed in a car bomb blast in a former stronghold of the Daesh group in western Iraq, a security official said on Wednesday. Conflicting death tolls from various news agencies put the death toll to as high as 11.

Major General Qasem al Dulaimi said the attacker drove a booby-trapped vehicle into a joint security checkpoint managed by the Iraqi army and the Popular Mobilization Forces at the southern entrance to the town of al Qaim, about 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the Syrian border.

He said four security forces personnel and three civilians were killed in the blast.

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Daesh claimed responsibility for the attack. 

The 0600 GMT (9 am local time) bombing at a checkpoint on the outskirts of al Qaim also wounded 16 people – 11 civilians and five security personnel, police Captain Mahmud Jassem said.

The town, on the Syrian border some 340 kilometres from Baghdad, was one of the last in Iraq to be recaptured from the Daesh in November 2017.

One month later, Prime Minister Haider al Abadi declared victory over the group.

But since then, the security forces have announced a number of campaigns to flush out holdout Daesh fighters from sparsely populated areas from which they have continued to mount attacks.

The vast desert that straddles the border with Syria on either side of the Euphrates valley town of al Qaim has been one Daesh's principal hideouts. 

Iraq declared victory over Daesh in December, dislodging the group from all the territory it held after its self-proclaimed caliphate, which also encompassed part of Syria, collapsed earlier in 2017.

The group's fighters have since then waged a campaign of kidnappings and killings. 

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