Islamic State insurgents are reportedly weaponizing cows in an attempt to target Iraqi forces.
Two cows, strapped with explosive belts, detonated in a village in eastern Iraq on Sunday, injuring one civilian. Militants set the cattle in the direction of a military checkpoint in Diyala province, but Iraqi soldiers opened fire and “blew them up” before they could reach their target, according to a Kurdish news organization.
Sadiq Husseini, a local official, said that the incident involving the bomb-laden bovines “shows that [ISIS] has lost the ability to recruit young people and would-be suicide bombers, instead they are using cattle.”
ISIS has been attempting to rebuild in Iraq after the loss of its caliphate, which at one point encompassed large swaths of Iraq and Syria. The Diyala province has a mixed population of Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds.
Both the Kurdistan Regional Government and Iraq claim ownership of the area, sowing an ongoing territorial dispute. ISIS has taken advantage of the dispute and holds a zone of support in the southern part of the province.
This isn’t the first time militant groups have used animals to fight. Fourteen people have been killed in six recorded incidents of “donkey-borne IEDs” since 2010.
