Kurdish general among 4 killed in Iraq blast

A roadside bomb blast killed a Kurdish peshmerga major general and three of his bodyguards in Iraq's Daquq region on Tuesday, senior officers said.

The device exploded as Major General Salah Dilmani was touring the peshmerga front against the Islamic State group south of the city of Kirkuk, Lieutenant Colonel Ismail Hamid said.

The explosion "led to his martyrdom and that of three of his bodyguards", peshmerga Colonel Burhan Sheikha said, adding that the blast also wounded five people.

The attack took place in Atshana village near Daquq, about 200 kilometres (125 miles) north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

The peshmerga forces of Iraq's autonomous northern region of Kurdistan have been battling IS jihadists on several fronts, from Iraq's northwestern borders with Syria to areas just northeast of Baghdad, near the border with Iran.

Sheikha said Dilmani was the commander of the peshmerga 118th brigade.
Source: AFP