Baquba - During an operation led by Iraqi forces against the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) militants, two Iraqi army officers, including one senior officer, were killed in a bomb explosion on Tuesday in Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, a provincial security official said. Brig. Gen. Haseeb Ahmed, the advisor for Iraq's Dijlah Operations Command, and a Captain officer were killed when a roadside bomb struck a convoy of military vehicles in the rugged area near the town of Qara-Tappa, some 110 km northeast of Baquba, head of the security committee of Diyala's provincial council, Sadiq al-Husseini, told Xinhua. The huge blast wounded another Brig. Gen., who is the deputy commander of the army's 5th Division, and three soldiers, Husseini said, adding that the officers were supervising an operation against IS militants. Earlier in the day, Lt. Gen. Mezhir al-Azzawi, commander of Dijlah Operations Command, told Xinhua that the security forces launched an operation to attack hideouts of IS militants in the area between Qara-Tappa and Himreen Hills, some 55 km north of the provincial capital city of Baquba. The operation came a day after the soldiers killed four IS suicide bombers who attacked the army's Karkoush base in east of Baquba, which itself located some 65 km northeast of Iraqi capital Baghdad. Two Iraqi soldiers were killed and three others wounded by the clashes with the IS militants during the attack on Karkoush base. The attack came as the Iraqi security forces backed by anti-IS international coalition are carrying out a major offensive to drive out the IS militants from their major stronghold in the western side of Mosul in northern Iraq.
