ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Nine members including a leader of Sunni tribal paramilitias were killed in an ISIS attack in the Anbar province on Monday night.
Eid Aamash al-Karbouli, an Anbar Provincial Council member, said ISIS members had attacked the al-Dhabitiya area in the al-Karma sub-district of western Anbar.
A leader of the Sunni tribal forces, Mashaan Ibrahim, was killed with eight of his men following a raid on his house.
ISIS took advantage of weak “security support” in the area, according to Karbouli, because al-Dhabitiya has a very complicated geography.
He said one brigade of Iraqi Army and of Hashd al-Shaabi fighters are there.
He argued those forces weren’t sufficient to fully secure the area. The Iraqi Army deployed reinforcements to the area, and operations against ISIS have begun.
A source told Baghdad Today that the ISIS members had been wearing military uniforms, and 10 were killed in the attack, including the officer and 9 other fighters of Sunni tribal fighters.
There has been a recent surge of bombings and attacks by ISIS on Iraqi forces, against civilians and infrastructure. The attacks, according to the spokesperson for Joint Operations Command are daily.
Traditionally Sunni areas of northern and western Iraq were ravaged during the ISIS conflict and pockets of ISIS remnants have resumed activity.
The Sunni tribal forces are known as the Hashd al-Ahsairi and mostly come from Anbar, Nineveh, and Saladin provinces. They technically fall under the command of the primarily Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi and are part of the Popular Mobilization Force (PMF).
The US-led international anti-ISIS coalition, the Iraqi Ministry of Defense and the Kurdistan Region Security Council have all acknowledged ISIS remnants active.
Former Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi declared ISIS defeated on December 9, 2017.
As Iraq continues to fill lower posts in the government, new Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi faces unifying the Iraqi Security Forces.
