A Russian-made Iraqi fighter jet accidentally dropped a bomb on a Baghdad neighborhood on Monday, killing at least 12 people, Iraqi officials said.
The plane — one of several Sukhois used by Iraq in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) — was returning to base when the accident happened.
Military spokesman Brig. Gen. Saad Maan Ibrahim told the Associated Press that a technical failure caused the Sukhoi to malfunction and drop the bomb, which hit a number of houses in the Iraqi capital’s eastern neighborhood of New Baghdad.
Three children and two women were among the 12 killed, a police officer at the scene and a medical official at a nearby hospital said. At least 25 others were wounded, the two officials added, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.
AP footage from the scene shows rescue teams in orange jumpsuits and blue helmets searching through the rubble for victims. At least one victim was seen wrapped with a blanket and being rushed to an ambulance.
Iraq is going through its worst crisis since the 2011 withdrawal of U.S. troops, with ISIL in control of swaths of territory in the north and west after a blitz last year in which the group captured Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, and the majority of the western province of Anbar.
Source: Aljazeera
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