MOSUL - An Iraqi policeman sacrificed himself to shield army recruits from a suicide bomber northeast of Baghdad on Thursday, as attacks targeting security personnel killed 15 people country-wide.
The violence comes as Iraq suffers a protracted surge in bloodshed that has killed more than 2,650 people so far this year despite wide-ranging operations against militants by the security forces.
In Baladruz, northeast of Baghdad, policeman Raad Kadhim Hattab threw his arms around a suicide bomber who was trying to target a recruitment centre, the interior ministry said.
The bomber detonated his explosives, killing Hattab and an army recruit and wounding 10 others, police and a doctor said - a toll that would almost certainly have been higher were it not for the policeman’s sacrifice.
Militants killed 13 security forces members on Thursday in the northern province of Nineveh, which is one of the most dangerous areas of Iraq.
In Mahallabiyah, west of provincial capital Mosul, militants armed with automatic weapons attacked a military site, killing 12 soldiers and wounding 15, a police officer and a morgue employee said.
It is the deadliest day for the Iraqi army since February 17, when 13 soldiers were killed.
And a police colonel was gunned down in another attack southeast of the city.
Militant groups frequently target members of the security forces, some of whom lack adequate training and discipline.
And they are able even to strike at supposedly secure targets, such as government buildings, police stations, prisons and military installations.
The justice ministry announced on Monday that Iraq’s infamous Abu Ghraib prison, located west of Baghdad, was closed due to security fears.
Abu Ghraib and another prison near Baghdad were the targets of major assaults by militants last July, in which hundreds of inmates were freed.
Justice Minister Hassan al-Shammari said the ministry’s decided to close Abu Ghraib as “part of precautionary measures related to the security of prisons,” adding that the facility is “in a hot area.”
In another sign of the reach of militant groups and the weakness of security forces, anti-government fighters have since January held all of the city of Fallujah, near Abu Ghraib prison, and shifting parts of Anbar provincial capital Ramadi, farther west.
The security forces face a major test on April 30 when Iraqis vote in the first parliamentary election since American forces left at the end of 2011.
The rising violence that has plagued Iraq over the past year has been driven mainly by widespread anger among the Arab minority, who say they are mistreated by the government and security forces. It has also been fuelled by the civil war in neighbouring Syria.
Already this month more than 400 people have been killed in the violence, according to AFP figures based on security and medical sources.