(MENAFN- Gulf Times) A suicide car bomb ripped through roadside restaurants at the entrance to the town of Baladruz in eastern Iraq, killing at least 15 people, police and provincial officials said yesterday.
The attack took place late Saturday at the entrance of Baladruz, which lies about 65km northeast of Baghdad, and was claimed by the Islamic State group.
"It hit a string of restaurants on the eastern side of town... Most of the people there were truck drivers transporting goods between Baghdad and Kurdistan," a police captain said.
The officer said 37 people were also wounded in the explosion. Khidhr Muslim Abed, a member of the Diyala provincial council, confirmed the toll.
IS claimed the attack in a statement posted on militant forums yesterday and said that one of those killed was a member of the counter-terrorism unit in Iraq's police.
The group named the suicide attacker as Ali al-Ansari.
A string of explosions went off in Baladruz and provincial capital Baquba two weeks ago. Intelligence officials had warned at the time they expected more attacks.
A month ago, IS fighters attacked a prison in the town of Khalis, breaking at least 40 inmates free, including some senior members of the militant organisation.
Sporadic violence has continued to plague the ethnically and religiously mixed province of Diyala since IS lost its last fixed positions there in January.
Analysts have warned that, as government and allied forces reclaim the ground lost in IS's massive offensive last year, militants could revert to insurgency tactics in reconquered areas.
*Britain is to expand its military training mission in Iraq in the coming
weeks, Prime Minister David Cameron announced yesterday, saying the Iraqi army needed more help to deal with improvised bombs planted by IS militants.
Cameron, speaking before a meeting of the Group of Seven industrial nations (G7) in Germany, said Britain would send 125 new military advisers to Iraq, most of whom would train the Iraqi army in how to counter improvised explosive devices or IEDs.
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