BAGHDAD, June 21 (Xinhua) -- Two paramilitary Hashd Shaabi members, including the leader of a regiment, were killed on Friday and two others wounded in a bomb explosion in Iraq's central province of Salahudin, a Hashd Shaabi official said.
The incident took place in the afternoon when a roadside bomb struck a convoy of vehicles belonging to Hashd Shaabi's 52nd Regiment, while the unit members were conducting a search operation on a main road in east of the provincial capital Tikrit, located some 170 km north of Baghdad, the official told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
The blast destroyed one of the vehicles and killed Omer Edris, leader of Hashd Shaabi regiment, and another member of the paramilitary unit, in addition to wounding another two members, the source said.
A medical source from the main hospital in Tikrit told Xinhua that the hospital received the bodies of two Hashd Shaabi members and two others for treatment.
Previously, hundreds of the Islamic State (IS) militants fled their former strongholds in the cities of Salahudin province, including Tikrit, after the Iraqi forces cleared these areas during major anti-IS offensives.
However, the security situation in Iraq was dramatically improved after Iraqi security forces fully defeated the IS militants across the country late in 2017.
But IS remnants have since melted in urban areas or resorted to deserts and rugged areas, carrying out guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians despite military operations from time to time to hunt them down.
