ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Iraq’s interior ministry on Thursday opened a “comprehensive” investigation into the killing of over a dozen people in an Islamic State (ISIS) attack northeast of Baghdad, a day after the group claimed responsibility for the bloody incident. “The blood of the martyrs will not go in vain,” said interior minister Othman al-Ghanimi, who visited Diyala province to offer his condolences to the families of the victims and visit the wounded. An Iraqi security delegation, headed by Ghanimi, arrived in the province on Thursday. The minister announced the launch of the investigation shortly after. The incident in Diyala’s Miqdadiyah on Tuesday night saw the killing of 15 people and injuring of 17 others, according to the governorate’s health department. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack. ISIS seized control of swathes of Iraq in 2014. The group was declared territorially defeated in 2017 but it continues to carry out bombings, hit-and-run attacks, and abductions across several provinces. ISIS remnants are particularly active in parts of northern Iraq that are disputed by Erbil and Baghdad, including in the provinces of Kirkuk, Diyala, and Salahaddin. The attack was widely condemned by Iraqi and Kurdish leaders as well as foreign missions in the country. In the latest edition of its weekly propaganda newspaper al-Naba, ISIS claimed it conducted 11 attacks in Iraq last week, killing and injuring 26 people.
