{"id":9738,"date":"2017-03-09T11:32:01","date_gmt":"2017-03-09T11:32:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/iraq-is-suicide-bombers-kill-26-at-tikrit-wedding-party\/"},"modified":"2017-03-09T11:32:01","modified_gmt":"2017-03-09T11:32:01","slug":"iraq-is-suicide-bombers-kill-26-at-tikrit-wedding-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/iraq-is-suicide-bombers-kill-26-at-tikrit-wedding-party\/","title":{"rendered":"Iraq: IS suicide bombers kill 26 at Tikrit wedding party"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>                                  <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Map showing Hajaj and Tikrit in Iraq\" src=\"http:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/86D3\/production\/_95051543_iraqhajaj9760317.png\"\/>                      <\/figure>\n<p class=\"caps\">Two suicide bombers have blown themselves up, killing 26 people, as wedding guests gathered in a village near the Iraqi city of Tikrit.<\/p>\n<p>So-called Islamic State said two of its fighters had carried out the attack in the village of Hajaj on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>The first detonated an explosive vest among men who were dancing, then a second bomber targeted those who had gathered to help, officials said.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the dead were children, a local government spokesman told AP.<\/p>\n<p>IS said it had targeted a gathering of the Popular Mobilization Forces, a coalition of mostly Shia paramilitaries backed by Iran.<\/p>\n<p>In a post on its channels on the messaging app Telegram, IS said the attackers had clashed with members of the group before detonating their explosives.<\/p>\n<p>At least 25 people were wounded.<\/p>\n<p>The wedding party on Wednesday evening was for a family who had been displaced from Iraq&#039;s western Anbar province and is affiliated with a major anti-IS tribe there, AP reported.<\/p>\n<p>The jihadists captured swathes of northern and central Iraq, including Tikrit, in the summer of 2014, but were forced out of the city by Iraqi forces in April 2015.<\/p>\n<p>But they continue to launch attacks in and around the city, which was the hometown of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.<\/p>\n<p>It comes as Iraqi government forces are battling to retake the northern city of Mosul from the Sunni extremist group. <\/p>\n<p>After gaining control of the city&#039;s eastern side in January, troops are now pushing into the more densely-populated west.<\/p>\n<p>This week they have taken a government complex and the Badoush prison, where IS are alleged to have killed 600 mainly Shia inmates.<\/p>\n<p><a rel='nofollow' href=http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-middle-east-39215496 target=\"_blank\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two suicide bombers have blown themselves up, killing 26 people, as wedding guests gathered in a village near the Iraqi city of Tikrit. So-called Islamic State said two of its<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}