Three Iraqi soldiers, civilian killed in ISIS attack in Jalawla: Asayesh major

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Islamic State (ISIS) militants attacked the Arab village of Islahiyah, east of Khanaquin in the Jalawla sub-district of Diyala province at around 7pm local time on Sunday, Major Simko Ali, an Asayesh officer in nearby Kifri district, told Rudaw.

“Due to that [the ISIS attack], a civilian was killed, and five more were injured, including women,” Major Ali stated.

Iraqi Army personnel rushed to the scene of the attack, and were subsequently targeted by ISIS militants. “Following the Daesh attack, the Iraqi Army went to the aid of the people, and due to the clashes that erupted, three soldiers with the rank of major were killed and three more were injured,” added the Asayesh major.

The Islamic State has not publicly taken responsibility for the attack, and Iraqi security forces have yet to announce the incident. The Islamic State was declared defeated in December of 2017 when it was pushed out of its last territorial strongholds in Iraq, but the group has reverted back to hit and run insurgency tactics and continues to pose a deadly threat to civilians.

The area between Kifri and Jalawla, which is known to Kurds as Garmiyan, has witnessed similar ISIS attacks in the past. On July 31, four Kurdish security members, including a commander, were killed in an ISIS attack in Kolajo, a small town in Kifri district.

Parts of the Garmiyan region, located to the south of Kirkuk and to the north of Diyala, have long been disputed between the Kurdistan Regional Government and the Iraqi federal government. The area remains a hotbed of ISIS activity due to the lack of cooperation between Kurdish security forces and Iraqi security forces.

Kurdistan Region’s 2017 independence referendum led to a major dispute between the Iraqi government and the Kurdish government about who would control Kirkuk and its surrounding areas. The dispute escalated into an Iraqi offensive against the Peshmerga, and the Peshmerga, who had defended Kirkuk from ISIS since 2014, subsequently withdrew to a certain demarcation line that falls between the federally recognized Kurdistan region and formerly ISIS-controlled areas in Nineveh and Kirkuk.

Since both the Iraqi Armed Forces and the Peshmerga wish to avoid direct conflict but are unwilling to coordinate with each other, there is now a strip of no man’s land between them that neither force is patrolling regularly. ISIS regularly exploits the security vacuum in this no man’s land to carry out deadly attacks.

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