TIKRIT: Suicide attackers from the Daesh group killed at least 12 Iraqi forces Sunday in a brazen attack on police training at a military base, officials said.

A commando of fighters equipped with rifles and suicide vests snuck into Speicher base, near the city of Tikrit, in the middle of the night.

Their target was a large group of police forces from Nineveh, a northern province of which Mosul is the capital, who were undergoing training.

“Under the cover of fog, they broke into Speicher,” said Mahmud Al-Sorchi, spokesman for the paramilitary force being set up to take back Daesh-held Nineveh.

“Nineveh police managed to kill seven attackers but three were able to detonate their suicide vests,” he said, adding that three officers were among the 12 policemen killed.

He also said 20 policemen were wounded in the attack.

Several other security sources in the region confirmed the attack, which was claimed by the Daesh group.

The terrorist organization said seven suicide attackers managed to enter the huge military base, which lies about 160 km north of Baghdad.

In a statement posted online, Daesh said its commando reached a center where 1,200 cadets were being trained, sparking clashes that lasted four hours.

Speicher is located in Salaheddin province, which was one of the regions conquered by Daesh when it swept across much of Iraq’s Sunni Arab heartland in June 2014.

A number of Daesh terrorists remain in Ramadi but they are not in position to mount a fightback that would challenge the Iraqi forces’ control of the city.

“Over the last 24 hours, the Iraqi forces have cleared several more hundred square meters of the city,” said Col. Steve Warren, spokesman of the US-led coalition whose trainers and aircraft helped Iraqi forces retake Ramadi.

“We don’t think the enemy has enough combat power in downtown Ramadi to be able to recapture the city,” he said.

“We haven’t seen anything more than small teams of Daesh (four to eight individuals) trying to conduct harassing attacks,” Warren said.