BAGHDAD — Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi raised on Sunday the Iraqi flag at a border crossing with Syria days after Iraqi forces retook it from the Islamic State group, state TV announced. Al-Iraqiya TV said al-Abadi visited the newly-liberated town of Qaim and the nearby Husaybah border crossing in western Iraq. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but it bore the hallmarks of IS which has previously claimed responsibility for such attacks. The ethnically-mixed city Kirkuk is the country’s largest contested city claimed by Arabs, Turkmen and Kurds. The bombing is the first since Iraqi federal security forces took over the city from Kurdish region-run troops last month in the wake of a controversial independence vote.

Source: National Post November 05, 2017 12:23 UTC