BAGHDAD (AP) - Officials say Iraq’s defense minister has escaped a sniper attack unharmed while traveling in a convoy north of the capital, Baghdad.
A statement Monday says Defense Minister Khaled al-Obeidi was heading back to Baghdad after a field visit to troops fighting Islamic State militants when shots were fired on his convoy near the contested town of Beiji. The statement says one of his guards was wounded.
Iraq is going through its worst crisis since the 2011 withdrawal of U.S. troops. The Islamic State group controls large swaths of the country’s north and west after capturing Iraq’s second-largest city of Mosul and the majority of Anbar province last year.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.