Militants in Iraq launched an audacious attack on a military barracks in a remote area in the country's north and killed 20 troops overnight, according to Reuters.
Some of the officers had been bound and shot at close range, authorities said Sunday as other attacks killed 18, Reuters reported. A medical official, who confirmed the casualty number said 11 troops had their hands tied behind their backs and suffered close-range gunshots to the head.
The killings at the military barracks in the village of Ayn al-Jahish outside of Mosul mirrored two previous assaults earlier this year in the area targeting security forces, as well as representing the latest blow to the government's efforts to achieve stability in restive Sunni-dominated areas, according to Reuters.
Gunmen staged the assault late Saturday night, two police officers said, shooting some at short range while others died fighting the insurgents when they stormed the barracks, Reuters reported.
The slain troops were in charge of protecting an oil pipeline that sends Iraqi crude oil to international markets and guarding a nearby highway, according to Reuters. Attacks on the pipeline are common in that area near Mosul, about 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the barracks attack, though it resembles a February attack in the area claimed by the al-Qaida-breakaway group Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, Reuters reported.
Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city is a former insurgent stronghold and was al-Qaida's last major urban stronghold in the country before U.S. troops wrested back in 2008, according to Reuters. Sunni insurgent groups remain strong in the region long after the U.S. withdrawal from the country, challenging Iraq's Shiite-led government.
It's been the most serious challenge to the government's efforts to achieve stability in Iraq, which just had its first parliamentary election since the U.S. withdrawal, Reuters reported. Confrontations over Sunni protests in December saw security forces withdraw from areas in Anbar province, allowing militants to take over the city of Fallujah and parts of the provincial capital of Ramadi.
