ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — An explosion on Monday in Kirkuk has killed at least two members of Iraqi security forces and injured six others, reported the Iraqi Security Media Cell late Monday. The attack was later claimed by the Islamic State (ISIS) group. "An improvised device explosion [IED] in Palkana village in Kirkuk province martyred two members of Hashd al-Shaabi and [Iraqi army's] Infantry Brigade 52 and injured six others from them," reads a statement from the cell published by state media. It did not report the perpetrators of the attack, but minutes later ISIS identified themselves as responsible, claiming to have killed and injured nine members of Hashd al-Shaabi or the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). The attack comes less than a day after ISIS launched an attack on a Baghdad lookout point, manned by Hashd members, which killed at least four people and injured three others, according to the Security Media Cell. ISIS claimed a higher death toll in the attack, saying that 18 members of Hashd were killed, in addition to the destruction of six military vehicles, in a statement on their Telegram channel. ISIS swept across Iraq in 2014, seizing major cities across the north and west and reaching the suburbs of the capital Baghdad. Iraq announced the territorial defeat of the group in late 2017 but its remaining fighters have continued carrying out attacks against security forces and civilians. The jihadist group said in its weekly al-Naba newsletter released on Thursday that it had conducted six operations in Salahaddin province in the week of October 29–November 4. Salahaddin was the second most frequently attacked province in Iraq after Diyala, where ISIS conducted ten attacks that same week, according to the newsletter. The Global Coalition against ISIS conducted seven strikes on targets in Iraq in September, killing 18 people and destroying six cache sites and four tunnels, the Coalition said in its latest available strike summary report released early last month. ISIS has exploited the security gaps between Iraqi forces and Kurdish Peshmerga in disputed areas like Kirkuk and Salahaddin. Kurdistan Region’s President Nechirvan Barzani condemned the Baghdad attack, noting that ISIS remains a threat. "These attacks prove that terrorism is a constant threat and danger, and it has targeted the lives and tranquility of all of us. Therefore, we have to cooperate and coordinate, and encounter terrorism with unity," he said in a statement late Monday.
