Suspected ISIS militants descended on Al-Bubali village in Diyala’s western Khalis district with motorcycles on Monday night and attacked the area, killing eight and injuring three.
“The security forces are now conducting operations in search of terrorists,” Khalis district commissioner Uday al-Khadran said as cited by state media, adding “there are terrorist outposts near the village that have not been dealt with previously.”
The attack on Diyala is the second in a spate of attacks by ISIS cells in two days, with the terror group continuing to pose a serious threat to residents, particularly those in villages that lie in the proximity of the disputed territories between Baghdad and Erbil.
A deadly ISIS attack in Kirkuk province killed at least seven members of the federal Iraqi police on Sunday, prompting Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani to direct an investigation into the attack.
“We extend our condolences to the families of the martyrs in the attack on Riyadh district in Kirkuk as well as the village of Al-Bubali in Diyala, and we pray for the wounded to recover,” said Muhsin al-Mandalawi, first deputy speaker of the Iraqi parliament, while calling on Sudani to rid the areas of the terror group.
ISIS seized large swathes of Iraqi and Syrian territory in 2014 and declared a so-called “caliphate.” While the group was declared territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017, it still continues to pose serious security risks through hit-and-run attacks, bombings, and abductions across several provinces.
The terror group is particularly active in areas disputed by Erbil and Baghdad, including parts of Kirkuk, Salahaddin, and Diyala.
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