MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — The Latest on developments in Iraq, where Iraqi forces are closing in on fast-vanishing IS-held territory in the city of Mosul (all times local):
11:30 a.m.
An Iraqi provincial official says a suicide bomber, disguised in a woman's all-covering robe, struck inside a camp for displaced people in the western province of Anbar, killing at least 14.
Councilman Taha Abdul-Ghani says the attack took place at dusk on Sunday as authorities were accommodating families that had fled from the Islamic State-held town of Qaim.
Abdul-Ghani says that a police colonel was among the dead. The officer became suspicious about the person in the long robe and walked up to the attacker, embracing him — presumably to reduce the number of casualties — as he detonated his explosives.
The explosion also wounded at least 20 people.
Iraqi forces have pushed IS out of most of Anbar, and are now in the final stages of a major offensive in the northern city of Mosul. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack but suspicion is likely to fall on IS, which has carried out similar attacks in the past.
9:20 a.m.
An Iraqi officer says that two women suicide bombers, hiding among a group of fleeing civilians, targeted Iraqi troops in Mosul, killing one soldier and wounding several.
Sgt. Ali Abdullah Hussein says the attack was the latest by the Islamic State group as Iraqi forces close in on the last pocket of militant-held territory in the Old City neighborhood. The IS group's last stand in Mosul is rapidly shrinking, with the militants now controlling just over 1 square kilometer in all.
Hussein says the attack happened on Monday morning in the area of the destroyed al-Nuri Mosque.
He said that over the past three days, at least four such attacks have targeted Iraqi forces as hundreds of civilians flee the fierce fighting in the Old City's congested streets.
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