Two ISIS militants killed in Kirkuk

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Two Islamic State (ISIS) militants were killed in a federal police operation in southwest Kirkuk province on Saturday, according to Iraq’s Ministry of Interior.

The militants were killed by units of the fifth federal police division, who set up a “tight ambush” and “besieged” the militants in Wadi Abu Shahma in Kirkuk’s southwestern Al Rashad district, the ministry announced in a statement.

The operation was directed by Iraq’s Minister of Interior Othman al-Ghanimi.

Kirkuk lies in territory disputed between the central government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil.

Security has been a constant concern in disputed areas like Kirkuk. Despite being territorially defeated in Iraq in December 2017 after it swept across Iraq in 2014, ISIS has exploited security gaps between Iraqi forces and Kurdish Peshmerga in the province, with remnants of the group returning to their earlier insurgency tactics, ambushing security forces, kidnapping and executing suspected informants, and extorting money from vulnerable rural populations.

Two Kirkuk residents were kidnapped by ISIS and released for $40,000 in November after being held for six months in captivity. 

Two wells were bombed at Kirkuk’s Khabbaz oilfield on December 9, security sources told Reuters. ISIS later took responsibility for the attack.

Two Iraqi security forces were killed last month in an IED explosion in Palkana village.  The attack was also claimed by the terror group.

Kirkuk was under Kurdish control until October 2017, when Iraqi forces retook the disputed territories following the Kurdistan Regional Government’s failed independence referendum.

In August, four Iraqi soldiers were killed after ISIS militants opened fire on a checkpoint belonging to Iraqi security forces in the southeast of the province. 

ISIS militants again attacked an Iraqi police post in Hawija district, western Kirkuk in October, killing four policemen and injuring three more, according to a local police chief.