A German national carried out a suicide bombing against Iraqi security forces near the city of Baiji Monday, ISIS claimed in a statement posted on jihadi forums. "Our brother Abu Mohammed al-Almani advanced in a booby-trapped vehicle carrying 1.5 tons of explosives on a gathering of the Safavid army west of the city of Baiji," it said. "God made it easy for him to make the murtadeen (another derogatory word used by ISIS to designate the army) suffer, leading to dozens of deaths and injuries among them. What was left of them fled. Two Hummers and a bulldozer were burned," ISIS said. The jihadi group controls Baiji, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of Baghdad, but the country's largest oil refinery just north of it has been one of the 11-month-old Iraqi conflict's most relentless battles. Dozens of Germans have died fighting for ISIS in Syria and Iraq, several of them in suicide operations. EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova said recently that an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 Europeans were fighting with jihadi groups in Syria.
