KIRKUK, Kurdistan Region - Muhammad Haji Mahmoud, a well-known Kurdish Peshmerga commander and leader of the Kurdish Socialist Party, was among the wounded in Kirkuk as forces recaptured four villages south of the city on Friday from the Islamic State group (ISIS).
Military sources said Mahmoud was injured along with a group of 21 Peshmerga in the village of Albu Muhammad, some 30 kilometers south of Kirkuk. His wounds were not life threatening.
A Rudaw correspondent on the scene reported three Peshmerga soldiers killed in Friday’s operation.
Former Kurdish defense minister Jaafar Mustafa, who is among commanders leading the Friday operation, told Rudaw the plan is to recapture territories 15 square kilometers from ISIS positions in Kirkuk.
“We have been in close cooperation with the coalition air force in the region, which provided us with air support,” Mustafa told Rudaw.
A three-pronged ground attack that began in the early hours Friday was still ongoing at noon, local time.
Mahmoud, head of the Kurdistan Socialist Party, is one of the most well-known Kurdish war veterans. To his friends and followers he known affectionately as Kaka Hama.
Since the ISIS attack on Iraq in June last year, Kaka Hama has been in command of a large Peshmerga force south of Kirkuk, where in December his son Atta was killed by an ISIS sniper while trying to retake a village from the jihadists.
Over 1,200 Peshmerga soldiers have been killed since August last year, when ISIS attacked Kurdistan’s border areas, according to the Peshmerga ministry.
More than 80,000 Peshmerga forces patrol the 1,400 kilometer border that Kurdistan shares with the so-called Islamic State, which straddles vast territories in Iraq and Syria.
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