4 Killed in Mosul Car Bombing

Four people were killed in Iraq’s Mosul on Thursday, the first such attack since the ouster of the ISIS terrorist group from the city in 2017.

"A terrorist attack via car bomb hit near a restaurant in western Mosul," Iraq's security services said in a statement distributed to media.

Twelve people were wounded, a security official told AFP. A medical source confirmed the toll.

Neither could say whether the victims were civilians or combatants, but witnesses in Mosul said the restaurant is known to be frequented by security personnel.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast.

ISIS, which once controlled a cross-border "caliphate" home to millions of people, lost control of Mosul and the rest of its urban strongholds in 2017 but it has continued to wage guerilla-style attacks across Iraq.

ISIS overran Mosul in 2014, transforming the northern city into its de facto Iraqi capital until government forces recaptured it in July 2017.

Months later, the Iraqi government declared it had fully defeated the terror group.

But the group still carries out bloody hit-and-run attacks against civilian and government infrastructure, mostly in the rugged mountain terrain of the north and in desert areas along the western border with Syria.