Iraq..Two Peshmerga members were killed in Kirkuk by an ISIS attack

The Kurdistan Counter-Terrorism Service said in a statement that the organization’s militants “launched … an attack on the second regiment of the 10th Brigade of the Ministry of Peshmerga in the Zarawa area in the Kirkuk axis.”

This area is located in Altun Kobe district, 55 km northwest of the city center of Kirkuk, and it is one of the only areas where Peshmerga forces remained after the deployment of federal forces in Kirkuk governorate in 2017.

The statement added that the attack, which was carried out on foot and with machine guns, killed two Peshmerga in this oil and mountainous region.

ISIS lost control of the areas in which it was present until the end of 2017, but its secret cells launch attacks, often during the night, against security forces in remote areas.

These cells also exploit the lands of the strip, which extends in disputed areas where the Kurdish Peshmerga forces and the federal government forces are present.

Meanwhile, a statement by the Ministry of Peshmerga in the Kurdistan Region noted after the attack that “it was warned more than once about the organization’s sleeper cells’ intentions to launch attacks on security forces after reorganizing themselves in conflict areas.”

The statement stressed “the need to strengthen coordination between the Iraqi security forces, the Peshmerga forces and the international coalition to eliminate the organization.”

This attack comes four days after another attack in which 15 people were killed and 26 wounded, Tuesday, in an attack claimed by ISIS in the village of Rashad in Diyala province.

And last September, 13 members of the Iraqi Federal Police were killed in an attack by ISIS on a security checkpoint in the vicinity of southern Kirkuk.

In October, the Iraqi authorities announced the arrest of prominent militants in two operations outside Iraq, one in Turkey, Sami Jassim al-Jubouri, “money supervisor” in ISIS, and former deputy of al-Baghdadi, and the other responsible for a bombing that killed more than 320 people in Baghdad five years ago. Years.