Bomb kills Iraqi soldier, injures officer near Mosul

By Ahmed Qassim and Serhad Shakir

NINEVEH, Iraq (AA) - An Iraqi soldier was killed and an officer injured on Wednesday when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb northwest of Mosul, regional capital of Nineveh province, according to a local army source.

“An improvised explosive device… went off as an army vehicle passed through the village of Jarwana in the Tel Keppe district northwest of Mosul,” Army Captain Ali al-Makrami told Anadolu Agency.

The blast left one soldier dead and an army major-general injured, al-Makrami said, going on to note that the Federal Police had since launched an investigation into the incident.

In a related development, police arrested a Daesh terrorist as he tried to plant an explosive device in Mosul’s western Al-Najjar neighborhood, Army Captain Hassan al-Shazar told Anadolu Agency on Wednesday.

“He has since been referred to the national security authorities for questioning,” al-Shazar said.

In August, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared -- prematurely perhaps -- that Iraq’s northern Nineveh province had been entirely purged of Daesh elements.

The notorious terrorist group has recently suffered a string of crushing defeats in Iraq and Syria after overrunning large territories in both countries in 2014.