Three persons were killed and three others injured on Tuesday in two coordinated roadside bomb explosions in a town in Iraq’s central province of Salahudin, a provincial police source said.
The first roadside bomb went off before the mid-day near a drinking water facility in the town of Shirqat, some 280 km north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.
It left a civilian killed, Mohammed al-Bazi from Salahudin’s Police Command told Xinhua.
Al-Bazi said minutes later, another roadside bomb explosion ripped through security forces and residents who gather on the site of the first blast, killing two and wounding three others.
He added that attackers apparently followed an old tactic of creating an initial explosion to attract security forces and people, and then setting off another to inflict heavier casualties.
Iraqi security forces sealed off the scene and launched a search in the surrounding area for the attackers, al-Bazi added.
The security situation in Iraq was dramatically improved after Iraqi security forces fully defeated the extremist IS militants across the country late in 2017.
IS remnants, however, have since melted in urban areas or resorted to deserts and rugged areas as safe havens, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians.