ISIS militants attack Iraqi police post in Kirkuk province, killing four: police chief

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Islamic State (ISIS) militants attacked an Iraqi police post in Hawija district, western Kirkuk province on Monday night, killing four policemen and injuring three more, a local police chief has told Rudaw.

"Daesh (ISIS) has attacked southern Hawija from three sides," said Hawija police chief Fattah Hussein. 

More Iraqi forces are being deployed from Kirkuk, he added.

The Iraqi security media cell confirmed the attack at noon on Tuesday.

ISIS took control of swathes of Iraq in 2014, but was territorially defeated late 2017. Hawija was one of the group's last strongholds. As with other territories in northern Iraq contested by the governments of Erbil and Baghdad, remnants of the extremist militant group remain in Hawija. 

The group carried out several attacks against Iraqi and Kurdish security forces in the disputed territories this spring that killed a federal police officer in Kirkuk and two Peshmerga fighters in the Kolajo area of the Garmiyan administration, among others.

Monday's attack comes months after the US-led Global Coalition against ISIS handed over several military bases to the control of Iraqi security forces. Last month, the US decided to shrink its troop numbers in Iraq to 3,000.

Updated at 2 pm, October 6, 2020