MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The minister's convoy was attacked near Qayyarah Airfield in the Nineveh Governorate, with the attackers using mortars, the ministry said.
The ministry has not named the group responsible for the attack, adding that no one traveling in the defense minister's convoy was killed or injured.
Iraqi forces are carrying out operations in the Nineveh Governorate in preparation for an assault on Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city that has been under Daesh control since 2014.
Daesh, a militant jihadist group outlawed in many countries, including Russia, overran large parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014 amid the ongoing civil war in Syria.
