Within the span of one week, 12 people, including five security force members and seven civilians, have been killed in ISIS attacks in the Jalawla, Sadiyah, and Khanaqin areas (roughly 95km southeast of Kirkuk). Four of those killed were residents of Khanaqin.
“Daesh, due to the elections, are trying to show off. They move at night. They attack two or three unlucky citizens. Their attack on police and Hashd al-Shaabi positions got three to four Daesh killed. We do not have the army [around here]. The army is not in this sector," Col. Diyar Shawkat Jawhar of Khanaqin Police Department told Rudaw, using an Arabic acronym for ISIS.
The area is in desperate need of more security forces to secure it, he said.
Three Peshmerga brigades had been stationed in these areas prior to the events of October 16 when Iraqi forces and Hashd al-Shaabi took over.
"If the Iraqi government requests from our higher ups in the Ministry of Peshmerga, we as the Peshmerga Forces of Kurdistan have always been ready and prepared to return to the areas where we had been stationed before," Brig. Gen. Irfan Hamaxan, commander of the Peshmerga's 3rd infantry brigade, told Rudaw.
A 2009 agreement between Baghdad and Erbil, supervised by the US, saw joint administration of the disputed territories, until the Iraqi Army fled areas facing the threat of ISIS and Peshmerga took control.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory over ISIS last December. ISIS remains a serious threat in the country however.
