Kirkuk, March 14: A bomb attack in Iraq’s eastern Diyala province has claimed the lives of nine Iraqi soldiers and injured fourteen others, security officials say.
The attack took place on Monday when a bomber smashed a truck packed with explosives into an army base at Kanaan, some 70 km northeast of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, AFP reported.
The army garrison building was totally shattered, and the number of casualties is expected to rise.
Iraqi security forces sealed off the scene of the attack and the victims of the incident were shifted to a local hospital.
A number of houses near the army base were also damaged by the blast.
Diyala province has, since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, been the stronghold of al-Qaeda militants.
According to Opinion Research Business, since the 2003 invasion, more than one million civilians have lost their lives and about 5 million children have been orphaned.
——–Agencies