IS kills 15 troops, injures several in multiple suicide bombings

At least 15 Iraqi security officials have been killed and a further 22 were injured after multiple Islamic State suicide bombers targeted an Iraqi military base north of Baghdad, security officials said.

Two of the bomber detonated their explosive-rigged vehicles at the western gate of Camp Speicher, a former US base outside the Sunni city of Tikrit, Reuters reported, citing security sources. Three other suicide bombers blew themselves up after entering the section of the base where Iraqi police are being trained.

Most of the dead were police recruits.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the militant group which controls swaths of Iraq’s north and west, claimed responsibility for the attacks.  

It said it targeted “trainers from the rejectionist army”, a term used by the Sunni insurgents to describe Shi'ite Muslims.

Iraq is gripped by a sectarian conflict mostly between Shi'ites and Sunnis that has been exacerbated by the rise of the ultra-hardline Sunni insurgents of Islamic State. The extremist Sunni militants of the IS remain in control of large parts of the country in the north and west, as local Sunni tribal forces distanced themselves from the conflict.

Camp Speicher became a symbol of the group's brutality and hatred for Iraq's Shi'ite majority after as many as 1,700 soldiers from the base were killed in mid-2014 during the militants' lightning advance across the Syrian border.

Iraqi forces retook the centre of the western city of Ramadi last week, a victory that could help boost Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who has been rebuilding the military after stunning defeats in the face of Islamic State.

Iraq's Defence Ministry said Islamic State has stepped up suicide blasts in response to setbacks in Ramadi. It said in a statement the group had used 22 bombers in two recent failed attacks in Anbar where Ramadi is located. The military responded, killing at least 42 militants including the bombers, the ministry said.