ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - After Iraqi warplanes targeted a suspected Islamic State (ISIS) hideout in Kirkuk, a member of the Kurdish security forces (Asayish) was killed during a sweeping operation in the disputed province on Thursday.
“After the bombardment, a force from the Sulaimani Asayish operations, in cooperation with Iraqi forces, went to the site of the bombing for a sweep [operation], leading to clashes that resulted in the martyrdom of one of our members,” a senior Asayish official told Rudaw.
During clashes with ISIS in Kirkuk’s Shwan district, Mohammed Zhalla Mamlaha, an Asayish member, was killed. He was from the district of Chamchamal in Sulaimani province.
Earlier in the day, the Iraqi Joint Operations Command (JOC) announced airstrikes targeting four suspected ISIS members of the group during a joint operation with Sulaimani’s Asayish.
“The strike targeted an important hideout belonging to the terrorists, which was a cave housing an ISIS cell consisting of four members in areas of mutual concern between the provinces of Kirkuk and Sulaimani,” the JOC said in a statement.
The strike took place after the suspected militants infiltrated Kirkuk’s Shwan area, according to a statement from the General Directorate of Operations of the Kurdistan Region's security forces.
The Sulaimani-based Asayish said the militants were killed during the operation; however, pockets of the extremists remain in the area.
The strike in territories disputed between the federal Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is the latest in an ongoing effort to rid the country of ISIS cells, in areas where a security vacuum allows them to operate.
ISIS seized control of vast swathes of Iraqi territory in 2014, sweeping across vast stretches of northern and central Iraq.
But the jihadists’ so-called “caliphate” was brought to an end in 2017 as Iraqi and Kurdish fighters, supported by a US-led international coalition, clawed back territory from the group.
Despite its territorial defeat, ISIS has continued to pose security threats in Iraq through hit-and-run attacks, bombings, and abductions, particularly in the disputed territories that stretch across several provinces including Diyala, Salahaddin, Kirkuk, and Nineveh.
A joint operation between Iraqi counterterrorism forces and Asayish in Sulaimani on Thursday, captured a man in the province who was charged with being an ISIS leader in Iraq's western Anbar province; concurrently, Iraqi counterterrorism units apprehended another ISIS militant in Anbar.
On Tuesday, an Iraqi airstrike killed four suspected ISIS members including an “important leader,” in Kirkuk province.
In August, a joint operation by the Iraqi army and US forces in the western Anbar province killed 16 suspected ISIS militants, and the US military later said that the operation killed four ISIS leaders.
Earlier this month, the Iraqi army announced that more than 100 ISIS members have been killed since the beginning of the year.
This article was originally titled "Iraqi warplanes target ISIS hideout in Kirkuk".
Updated at 2:23 pm
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