ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Five civilians were killed on Sunday night when clashes broke out with Islamic State (ISIS) militants in Diyala province as villagers attempted to free two captives held by the terror group, a police spokesperson said on Monday.
Two farmers were abducted from an area north of Gulala (Jalawla) sub-district. “The family of the abducted knew Daesh [Arabic acronym for ISIS] had taken the abductees to Ibrahim Samin village near Qara Tapa town. To retrieve the abductees, they had asked the residents of Umm Hunta for assistance," Brigadier General Nihad Mohammed, spokesperson for Diyala police command, told Rudaw.
A group then went to where the militants were holding the two hostages in Qara Tapa, and "forced them to release the abductees, but Daesh then set up a trap and killed five residents of those villages," Mohammed added.
Ahmed Zargushi, mayor of Gulala, told Rudaw that ISIS militants in the area are small in number, “but they have a lot of movement especially between the villages of Lesser Umm Hunta and Greater Umm Hunta.”
Zargushi added that security in the area is under Iraqi control.
This comes after villagers in northern Diyala province said in May that they had been forced to abandon their properties and flee amid growing ISIS activity.
The Iraqi army, Peshmerga, and militias of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) all have a presence in the area, but a lack of coordination among them has paved the way for increased ISIS aggression.
Despite recent coordination between Peshmerga and Iraqi forces in the disputed territories last month, which included launching joint military operations and setting up cooperation centers, ISIS continues to operate, with locals saying the terror group is especially active at night.
Although territorially defeated in Iraq in December 2017, ISIS continues to launch attacks against security forces and civilians, sheltering in the security vacuum between Iraqi and Kurdish forces.
In an attack on May 11, two PMF members and one Peshmerga died after they were shot during an ISIS attack in Diyala’s Kifri district. Peshmerga and French forces launched a joint ground and air “revenge” operation the following month in Diyala.
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