ISIS claims responsibility for deadly attack in Khanaqin

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The Islamic State group (ISIS) has claimed responsibility for a Saturday attack on a Kakai village in Khanaqin which left seven people dead.  

“[ISIS] killed and wounded 15 from the Iraqi security forces and Kakai community yesterday [Saturday] after fighters of the Islamic State targeted them in Diyala,” claimed ISIS propaganda outlet al-Immaq.

“A security source told al-Immaq that snipers from the Islamic State opened fire on the Kakai community in Mekhas village in Khanaqin town, killing seven Kakais,” it added.

Gunmen stormed the village of Dara in Khanaqin near the Iranian border Saturday night, killing six Kakai Kurds and a member of the security forces who responded to the firefight, Kadhim Pirouli, a member of a village council in Khanaqin, told Rudaw.

Dara is next to the village of Mekhas, both located northeast of Khanaqin in Iraq's eastern Diyala province. The area is populated by members of the Kakai minority who are ethnically Kurdish and hold unique spiritual beliefs.

The attack also wounded at least five others, according to Hussein Ali, the deputy head of Khanaqin General Hospital.

Since 2014, Kakai Kurds have been targeted by ISIS because of their religious beliefs. Many now live near Kirkuk, Khanaqin, and in the Nineveh Plains. They have fought alongside Kurdish Peshmerga units during the counter-ISIS campaign that began in 2016.

ISIS has always referred to Kakais as “infidels” in its weekly al-Naba newsletter, which is usually published by the group's propaganda channels on Telegram messaging app.

The Ministry of Peshmerga released a statement on Sunday accusing ISIS of being behind the attack, and called on the Iraqi security forces to protect all civilians in the area.

“The Ministry of Peshmerga strongly condemns such heinous crimes and calls on the Iraqi forces to protect the homes of innocent civilians, regardless of their ethnic or religious differences, and to ensure the safety of the people living within these areas,” the statement read.

“We have repeatedly warned of the absence of Peshmerga forces in these areas and the threat of a security vacuum between the Peshmerga forces and the Iraqi army,” the statement added.

Khanaqin lies in one of the several sparsely-populated areas of Iraq disputed between the central government in Baghdad and the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil. Because the final status of the ethnically diverse and resource-rich areas was never permanently settled, a vacuum of uncertainty has opened up that ISIS has been able to exploit to continue launching attacks.

ISIS first swept into Iraq in 2014, capturing cities across northern and central Iraq including Mosul, Iraq's second largest city and the capital of Nineveh province. At the height of its power, ISIS controlled an area equivalent in size to the United Kingdom. During their occupation of Iraq and Syria, ISIS subjected as many ten million people to an extreme and violent interpretation of Islam.

Although Baghdad declared the territorial defeat of the group in Iraq in December 2017, its remnants have since reverted to insurgency tactics; ambushing security forces, kidnapping and executing suspected informants, and extorting money from vulnerable rural populations.