Three Peshmerga killed in Kirkuk ISIS attack

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Islamic State (ISIS) militants attacked a position of Peshmerga fighters in Kirkuk province, killing three Kurdish forces and wounding two others, according to commanders in the area.

The attack happened close to the village of Qaya Bashi, near the town of Prde (Altun Kupri), on the Kirkuk-Erbil road. 

The militants attacked the Peshmerga Brigade 10 with mortars, machine guns and AK-47s. The attack took place at thirty minutes past midnight and lasted 45 minutes.

Nuri Hama Ali, the commander of the front, told Rudaw that three of his fighters were killed and two wounded. He rejected unconfirmed reports that Peshmerga were abducted. 

One of the slain Peshmergas was Captain Pishtiwan Qaraniya, who was born in 1980, and is the father of three children.  

The wounded were taken to an emergency hospital in Erbil. The Kurdistan Region's Counter Terrorism Unit said in a statement that the Peshmerga countered the attack and the situation is under control.

The Peshmerga ministry claims that ISIS militants took heavy losses in the attack.

The disputed territories are still a hotspot for ISIS activity. Although the group was territorially defeated in Iraq in December 2017, sleeper cells have taken shelter in a security vacuum, void of either Iraqi federal forces or Kurdish Peshmerga.

ISIS militants ambush, kidnap and extort both civilians and members of the security forces in the disputed territories, which stretch across several provinces, including Kirkuk, Nineveh, Diyala and Salahaddin.

In ISIS’s weekly al-Naba propaganda newspaper released on Thursday, the group claimed it had carried out 38 operations across Iraq between April 21 and 28, killing and injuring 74 people.

ISIS claimed on Telegram recently that its fighters targeted the Iraqi army in the area of Zarga, near Tuz Khurmatu.

Peshmerga forces in the vicinity of Prde were targeted by rocket fire in late March.