Three killed, seven wounded in Khanaqin ISIS attack

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Three people were killed and seven others wounded after Islamic State (ISIS) militants attacked a village in southwestern Khanaqin, Diyala province on Wednesday night.

The deaths include a Peshmerga soldier, an Iraqi army soldier, and one civilian, according to a Kurdish military official.

"A group of ISIS militants attacked the vehicle of a Peshmerga soldier, who was a guard of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) office in Khanaqin outside his house in the village of  Bahari Taze, killing him"  Lieutenant Colonel Ahmed Mustafa of the Peshmerga forces intelligence told Rudaw.

"After the villagers heard the gunshots and screams, they rushed to the scene. The militants upon their retreat, fired on them, killing a villager and wounding four others," Mustafa added, citing local contacts.

Iraqi armed forces based in observation posts near the village rushed to the scene after hearing gunshots, the Peshmerga intelligence official added. 

"While on their way to the village, an Iraqi army Humvee vehicle triggered a landmine, killing an officer and three soldiers," Mustafa said.

The city of Khanaqin and its surrounding areas to the south have been under full Iraqi army control since October 2017. Like other disputed territories, Diyala province has become a hotbed for the extremists group's hit-and-run activities.

In recent months, ISIS has launched a series of attacks against the Peshmerga, Iraqi Army, and Shiite Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) in the province.

"We are not allowed [by the Iraqi army] to go to the aid of villages and locations that are under frequent ISIS threats," Mustafa said of disputed areas the Iraqi government controls in Diyala.

The increased frequency of ISIS attacks has forced many villagers in Khanaqin to flee from their homes.

In November and December of last year, nearly 10 Peshmerga soldiers were killed in various ISIS attacks in Khanaqin.

According to intelligence obtained by the Peshmerga, ISIS has deployed 30 well-trained jihadists, commanded by a “foreign emir” to the Khanaqin, Jalawla and Qaratapa regions of Diyala.

James F. Jeffrey, US Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIL said in a briefing in January, “the fight against ISIS, of course, had a signal success back in March with the defeat of the caliphate along the Euphrates in Syria, but we are seeing ISIS come back as an insurgency, as a terrorist operation, with some 14- to 18,000 terrorists between Syria and Iraq and ISIS considers both countries as – as they have always done, as a single front.”