Islamic State accused of using puppy as suicide bomber

Iraqi militia fighters claim they have rescued a puppy rigged up in a suicide vest by Islamic State.

In a video uploaded to the militia's Twitter account on Saturday, three fighters are shown holding a small dog strapped into an assortment of bottles and wires which they say is an explosive device. They are calling the unusual form of attack "the latest from Daesh [Islamic State]".

The fighters belong to the Popular Mobilisation Units (PMU), a collection of government-sponsored militias battling to drive Islamic State out of Iraq.

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"What was this animal's crime? Even animals, IS booby traps them and send them out against us," the fighters said in the video.

Questions have been raised about the authenticity of the video, given that forces on all sides of the complex conflict are prone to advancing their cause through online propaganda, emphasising their enemies' misdeeds.

However, animals have previously been used as suicide bombers. In World War II, Soviet troops attached timed explosives to dogs that had been trained to run under German tanks, while Hamas and the Taliban have been accused of strapping bombs to donkeys to target their enemies.

The PMU troops say they plan to send the dog to Baghdad Zoo "for a nice break from the war zone".

As a broad coalition of anti-IS forces closes in on Mosul, IS has employed every possible tactic to hold onto its shrinking territory, including "decoy military equipment and camouflage-dressed mannequins, and lately, booby-trapped animals", Iraqi News reports.

PMU commander Mousa Hassan Jawsak recently told the media that two militia leaders have been killed by explosions in booby-trapped houses as the militia forces clear the former IS stronghold of Tal Awar, 40 miles west of Mosul, Al Masdar reports.