Attack on Iraqi mly base kills 15

BAGHDAD: Attacks by five suicide bombers on an Iraqi military base north of Baghdad on Sunday killed at least 15 members of the security forces and wounded 22 others, security sources said.

Two of the bombers detonated their vehicle-borne explosives at the western gate of Camp Speicher, a former US base outside the Sunni city of Tikrit. Three others exploded themselves after entering the section of the base where Iraqi police are being trained, police and military sources in the Salahuddin operations command said.

IS, the militant group controlling swathes of Iraq’s north and west, claimed responsibility for the blasts in a statement distributed by supporters online.

It said it targeted "trainers from the rejectionist army", a term used by the Sunni insurgents to describe Shias.

Iraq is gripped by a sectarian conflict mostly between Shias and Sunnis that has been exacerbated by the rise of the ultra-hardline Sunni insurgents of Islamic State.