Two ISIS attacks on Gobtapa village near Makhmour resulted in the death of an Iraqi army soldier and injury of five others, Ghazi Faisal, head of a unit of Peshmerga volunteers in Makhmour district, told Rudaw on Saturday.
“We are now with the Iraqi army in the village and have surrounded the ISIS fighters,” Faisal said.
It is the second suspected ISIS assault in Iraq in two days after a deadly attack in Diyala’s Muqdadiya district (known as Sharaban in Kurdish) on Thursday evening left at least ten civilians dead and 17 injured. The incident drew condemnations from Iraqi and Kurdish officials and raised concern about ISIS sleeper cell activities in the disputed territories.
ISIS seized control of swathes of Iraqi territory during a brazen offensive in 2014 but it was declared territorially defeated in 2017 when its so-called caliphate in the country fell as Iraqi and Kurdish fighters, supported by a US-led international coalition, claimed back lands lost to the jihadists.
Despite its territorial defeat, the group has continued to pose a serious security threat to the country through hit-and-run attacks, bombings, and abductions in several provinces, particularly in areas disputed between the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which stretch across several provinces including Diyala, Salahaddin, and Kirkuk.
Joint Iraqi-Peshmerga brigades are expected begin securing these disputed areas this month, two years after the planned coordination was first agreed upon. The two forces have completed operations this past week around Qarachogh and Gwer, according to Peshmerga Commander Sirwan Barzani.