ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Islamic State (ISIS) militants attacked a village west of the city of Kirkuk late Wednesday night, kidnapping one civilian and injuring several others, according to security and border forces. Clashes erupted between the group and residents of old Shahal village, leading to the injuries of two people. While driving the injured to the hospitals, a bomb planted on the road detonated injuring five more civilians. “They [ISIS] were waiting for the Iraqi forces to come and for the bomb to detonate, but when this house brought the injured, the bomb detonated,” resident of new Shahal village Muayad Ramazan, told Rudaw’s Hardi Mohammed on Thursday. “They injured seven of them and abducted one,” Sabeer Osman, a relative of one of the injured told Rudaw, noting that the injured were taken to Erbil and one is in a critical situation. ISIS concurrently attacked the new Shahal village, injuring a member of the Iraqi forces and killing another. An Iraqi official, who preferred to stay anonymous for safety reasons, claimed at least 15 members of the terror group had made their way toward the city from Qarachokh mountain. ISIS seized control of swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014. The group was declared territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017 and Syria in 2019, but ISIS sleeper cells are particularly active in parts of northern and western Iraq that are disputed by Erbil and Baghdad, including in the provinces of Kirkuk, Diyala, and Salahaddin. The group takes advantage of a lack of coordination between Peshmerga and Iraqi forces in these rugged areas. Militants have conducted around 134 attacks in disputed territories so far this year, Secretary-General of the Ministry of Peshmerga Jabar Yawar told Rudaw on Monday, noting that most of the attacks took place in areas between Kifri and Tuz Khurmatu, as well as in eastern and western Kirkuk. On Tuesday, the group claimed responsibility for an attack on a village southwest of Kirkuk. It used rocket-propelled grenades (RPG), according to villagers, killing at least 25 cows and seven sheep and goats, and burning five cars and tractors and two houses. It also launched a mortar attack on a village near Kifri town. Baghdad and Erbil say they are working to close the security gap. This summer, they established four joint coordination centres in the disputed provinces to improve cooperation and are in talks to create joint brigades. Additional reporting by Hardi Mohammed
