ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – One Peshmerga soldier was wounded in Kurdistan’s Halabja province late Saturday by unidentified gunmen, and hospital staff said his condition was not critical. From his hospital bed, Mariwan Mohammed Amin told Rudaw that several gunmen fired on him and three other soldiers in the village of Griyana, where the Peshmerga were spending their time off. “We saw five unidentified gunmen near a pond so we immediately called the security forces," he said. “Then, the gunmen saw us and fired on us and I was wounded.” He said that clashes between the men and Asayesh security lasted some time but that the gunmen had escaped. The attackers “were speaking in Kurdish and one of them had a long beard,” he added, indicating that they could have been Islamic extremists. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) media identified the gunmen were "terrorists." A doctor at the hospital said his condition was not critical and that he did not require surgery. A Rudaw reporter said that the security forces are in hot pursuit of the gunmen in the village. In late August, Kurdish security forces shot dead four gunmen identified as ISIS militants in the Azhdagh mountain in Sangaw in southern Sulaimani.
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