Iraqi security forces apprehended a teenager wearing a suicide belt before he was able to detonate it in the city of Kirkuk, security officials said on Monday.
The foiled attack late Sunday was one of a series of security incidents in Kirkuk and came a day after a child suicide bomber killed more than 50 people in Turkey.
“Police forces managed to stop a bomber who was wearing a suicide belt. He was born in 2001,” Kirkuk police chief Brig. Gen. Khattab Omar Aref told reporters.
He said the boy likely intended to blow himself up at a Shiite place of worship in Kirkuk, an ethnically and religiously mixed city that lies 240 km north of Baghdad.
Nighttime TV footage showed a boy holding his hands in the air as security forces removed the explosives belt from around his waist.
The thwarted attack was one of four separate security incidents in Kirkuk over a few hours, including one in which a policeman shot a suicide bomber who tried to enter a Shiite prayer hall.
“The police forces have managed to foil a terrorist operation that could have caused victims and led to a catastrophe for the province,” Kirkuk Gov. Najmeddin Karim told AFP.
According to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the bomber who killed at least 54 people at a Kurdish wedding in the city of Gaziantep was aged 12 to 14.
Meanwhile, a British national has been killed in Ramadi, where a US company is clearing mines left by Daesh when the city was retaken in December, the British Embassy in Baghdad said on Monday.
“The British Embassy is aware that there has been a British national killed in Ramadi,” the statement said, giving no further details.

Source: Arab News