Yahia Adil was one of three Peshmerga who were wounded in the ISIS attack in Kifri, the third attack in three days on the Peshmerga in the province.
“Yahia was wounded last night along with two other Peshmerga and this morning he died at Sulaimani’s Shar hospital due to the severity of his injury,” Barzan Salih, a Peshmerga from the ministry’s ninth brigade, told Rudaw on Tuesday.
Six ISIS militants on motorcycles attacked Peshmerga in a village in the Kifri area. One Peshmerga was killed outright.
Adil is the eighth Peshmerga to die since Saturday. Ismael Mohammed, Aras Samin, Ibrahim Baran, Nabard Saeed, and Amin Hussein were killed on Saturday. Omer Tofiq was injured in the same attack on Saturday and succumbed to his injuries on Monday. Mohammed Mansour was killed on the spot in the attack on Monday.
Diyala is among the territories disputed by the Iraqi and Kurdish governments. Security forces frequently carry out operations against ISIS in these areas where the militants take advantage of rough terrain and a security vacuum. A lack of coordination between Iraqi and Kurdish forces in these areas is blamed for leaving the troops vulnerable to attack.
Secretary-General of the Ministry of Peshmerga Jabar Yawar on Monday told Rudaw that the attacks are originating from areas controlled by Iraqi forces.
“I can say that whenever ISIS attacks Peshmerga forces, they come from areas controlled by Iraqi forces, and after they are done, they return to those areas,” Yawar said.
ISIS was declared territorially defeated in Iraq four years ago, but Kurdistan Region’s minister of interior on Tuesday said the “war continues.”
“In the Kurdistan Region when we say terrorism and ISIS threats remain in Iraq, it is not our own analysis, it is based on data and information from intelligence institutions. ISIS' behavior, attacking Peshmerga and Iraqi federal forces, shows that there is still a lot of violence and the war continues,” said Minister Rebar Ahmed.
ISIS claimed responsibility for an October attack in which two Peshmerga were killed. The militants also attacked Peshmerga forces on the Kifri-Garmaser border between Sulaimani and Diyala provinces earlier this month.
Iraqi security forces on November 3 launched an operation in northeastern Diyala to clear out terror elements following an ISIS attack that left more than a dozen of the area’s residents dead and several others injured.
In a statement on Sunday, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) spokesperson said that they have repeatedly warned of security gaps. The “KRG reiterates the importance of reactivating joint coordination centres between Peshmerga and Iraqi forces,” he said.
The Peshmerga and Iraqi forces established joint coordination centres earlier this year, but they are not functioning properly because the two sides have not clearly outlined their respective roles and responsibilities, according to the Pentagon. This “poor coordination and communication between security forces in Iraq increased ISIS’s success, especially in areas along the boundary of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region,” the Pentagon stated in its latest report on anti-ISIS operations.
Talks to form joint Peshmerga-Iraqi brigades have stalled.
