BAGHDAD, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Two Iraqi military personnel were killed on Saturday while attempting to disarm a roadside bomb in Iraq's western province of Anbar, a local security official said.
"Units from the Iraqi army found a roadside bomb planted on a main highway in the town of Heet, some 70 km west the provincial capital Ramadi, and then an engineering team specialized in disarming bombs was called in," Mahmoud al-Dulaimi from Anbar Operations Command told Xinhua.
"But the bomb was detonated during the attempt to disarm it, killing two soldiers from the seventh division of the Iraqi army," al-Dulaimi said.
In December 2017, Iraq declared full liberation from the Islamic State (IS) militant group after the security forces and the paramilitary Hashd Shaabi units, backed by the anti-IS international coalition, recaptured all areas once seized by the extremist group.
However, IS remnants have since melted in urban areas or resorted to deserts and rugged areas as safe havens, carrying out guerilla attacks from time to time against the security forces and civilians.
