BAGHDAD, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Iraq's paramilitary Hashd Shaabi units foiled two suicide bomb attacks by Islamic State (IS) militants in Salahudin province on Tuesday.
The attack took place in the early morning when a suicide car bomb and a suicide bomber wearing explosive vest attacked the Hashd Shaabi base on the main road that links Salahudin's provincial capital Tikrit and the neighboring province of Kirkuk, the units said in a statement.
The paramilitary members detonated the car bomb and killed the suicide bombers before they reached their targets in the military base, the statement said, adding that two of the Hashd Shaabi members were wounded by the blasts.
In Salahudin province, IS is still in control of Makhoul mountain range and the villages between the range and the Tigris River.
The eastern bank of the town of Shirqat, about 280 km north of Baghdad, as well as its surrounding villages and rural area that stretch to the IS-held town of Hawijah in the western part of the oil-rich province of Kirkuk are also under IS rule.
Iraqi security forces and allied paramilitary Hashd Shaabi units have freed Tikrit, about 170 km north of Baghdad, and other key cities and towns in the predominately Sunni Arab province of Salahudin.
In a separate incident during the day, a man, his wife and three children were killed when a roadside bomb struck their truck near the town of Qara-Tapa, some 175 km northeast of Baghdad, Ammar al-Jubouri, a member of Diyala's provincial council, told Xinhua.
IS militants frequently attack the urban areas in Diyala province using the orchards near the villages and the sprawling rugged area in the northern part of Diyala, which also extends to the main IS redoubt in Mteibijah at the provincial border line with the neighboring Salahudin province.
Many blame the current cycle of violence and emergence of extremist groups, such as the IS, on the U.S. which invaded and occupied Iraq in March 2003.
