ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Three members of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi in Arabic) were killed and five others wounded in overnight clashes with Islamic State (ISIS) militants in Diyala province on Thursday morning, the PMF’s media office has said.
ISIS attacked a security checkpoint of the PMF’s 28th brigade, 28 kilometers north of Khanaqin in Diyala province late on Wednesday, according to a statement shared to Twitter and Telegram on Thursday morning.
ISIS later claimed responsibility for the attack via its Telegram propaganda channels.
The PMF, an umbrella network of Shiite militia groups, was formed in 2014 in response to a fatwa issued by Iraq’s most senior Shiite cleric, Ali al-Sistani, urging young Iraqis to take up arms against ISIS.
The brigade’s official Facebook page published the names and photos of its fighters killed in the attack.
Last week, ISIS claimed in its weekly propaganda newspaper al-Naba that it had conducted 13 operations in Iraq from February 4 to 10, killing and injuring 24 people.
ISIS has attacked PMF forces several times this year, particularly in territories disputed between Erbil and Baghdad, including Diyala, where ISIS sleeper cells thrive.
On February 2, five members of the PMF were killed in a clash with ISIS militants in Diyala, according to state media and the PMF.
On January 24th, at least 11 fighters from PMF were killed in an ambush by ISIS in Salahaddin.
Since the territorial defeat of ISIS in Iraq in late 2017, the role of the PMF has increasingly been called into question, with some demands to withdraw units garrisoned in northern areas and fully integrate them into the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF).
PMF units close to Iran are widely accused of abducting and killing protesters during the Iraqi protests, and are also believed responsible for a spate of deadly rocket attacks targeting US and coalition personnel stationed at bases across Iraq.
