ISIS militants kill 5 Iraqi soldiers in Diyala attacks

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Five Iraqi soldiers were killed and two more wounded in separate Islamic State (ISIS) attacks in Diyala province on Sunday, according to the Iraqi Defense Ministry.

The ministry’s Security Media Cell said two soldiers from the army’s 5th Division were killed and another wounded when militants fired on their base near the village of Nawfal in the Muqdadiya district of Diyala. 

On the same day, ISIS militants launched another attack on the 20th Infantry Brigade of the 5th Division’s Second Regiment in the al-Nada area of Baladroz district, “resulting in the martyrdom of three soldiers and the wounding of one officer”. 

ISIS has not publicly taken responsibility for the attacks.

Diyala has seen a serious uptick in ISIS activity as militants take shelter in the Hamrin Mountains. 

Remnants of the jihadist group have exploited the security vacuum between Iraqi and Peshmerga lines to resurge following their territorial defeat in Iraq in December 2017. 

The Kurdistan Region Security Council (KRSC), which releases monthly data on militant activity, says there were 50 incidents in November alone, concentrated mainly around Baghdad, Mosul, Kirkuk, and Saladin, including bombings, mortar attacks, shootings, and death threats.

Resolving the disputed status of these frontier areas and bolstering security cooperation between Iraqi and Kurdish forces is widely seen as the means of preventing the ISIS resurgence.

The Kurdistan Region’s 2017 independence referendum led to a major dispute between the Iraqi government and the semiautonomous Kurdistan Region over who should control the oil-rich province of Kirkuk and other disputed areas of Diyala and Nineveh. 

The dispute escalated into an Iraqi offensive against the Peshmerga. The Kurdish force, which had defended several of these areas from ISIS since 2014, withdrew to the federally recognized Kurdistan Region and some formerly ISIS-controlled areas of Nineveh, Kirkuk, and Diyala.

With both sides keen to avoid direct conflict, but unwilling to cooperation on security, a vast ungoverned space has been left for ISIS to regroup. 

Outgoing Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi received a phone call on Monday from US Defense Secretary Mark Esper. They discussed the ongoing fight against ISIS and the security and stability in Iraq. 

Multiple Peshmerga brigades and Garmiyan Asayesh forces were involved in a raid south of the town of Kolajo, Diyala province on Sunday, arresting ten armed ISIS suspects who had disguised themselves as farmers. 

ISIS seized vast areas of northern Iraq in the summer of 2014. At the height of its power between 2014 and 2016, ISIS controlled an area roughly the size of Great Britain, spread across both Iraq and Syria. 

It was declared territoriality defeated in Iraq in December 2017 and in Baghouz, eastern Syria, in March 2019. However, remnants of the group have exploited conflict and divisions in both countries to make a comeback. 

The latest US Pentagon inspector general report covering July 1 to October 25 said ISIS has continued to cement and expand its command and control structure in Iraq, enabling the group to stage more attacks.

“ISIS in Iraq conducted both attacks of opportunity, such as improvised bombs and hit-and-run attacks, and attacks designed to intimidate or gain influence, such as assassinations, kidnappings, and sniper attacks,” the report read, citing the Combined Joint Task Force–OIR (CJTF-OIR) which leads the fight against the militant group.

Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria has also allowed militants to break out of makeshift prisons controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and vanish amid the chaos. 

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