Iraqi Defence Minister Khaled al-Obeidi’s convoy came under sniper fire but he was unharmed, a ministry spokesman said.
Joint operations spokesman Brigadier
General Yahya Rasool said the attack took place in the western outskirts
of the town of Beiji, 190km north of Baghdad.
“The minister is well and safe,” Rasool told Reuters news agency. He said a guard had been lightly injured in the attack.
There was no immediate claim of
responsibility for the attack which took place on Monday.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abbadi has said
the battle over Beiji and its refinery, Iraq’s largest, is critical to
the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group.
If Iraqi security forces and Shia
militia fighters regain full control of the area around Beiji, it could
help them push north towards the ISIL-held city of Mosul and offset
losses in the western province of Anbar.
Obeidi was in Beiji as part of a field
visit to Salahuddin province. He earlier inspected troops at Camp
Speicher, a former US military base, and later toured Tikrit, the home
city of former President Saddam Hussein, a ministry statement said.
Beiji
has been a battlefront for more than a year, since its seizure by ISIL
in June 2014 as they swept through most of northern and western Iraq
towards the capital.
ISIL holds about a third of Iraq and neighbouring Syria in its self-declared “caliphate.”
A US-led coalition is conducting air strikes to target ISIL across both Syria and Iraq.
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