...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
(ISIS) snuffies and one Iraqi soldier were killed in festivities near Kirkuk on Sunday, Iraq’s Security Media Cell announced.
"[The Iraqi army] clashed with these members [of ISIS] and was able to surround and kill them and detonate the boom belts they were wearing," read the statement ‎from the Security Media Cell.
An Iraqi soldier was killed and an officer was injured due to the detonation of the boom belts, according to the statement.
It added that the operation was in accordance with orders from the leadership of the joint operations, after receiving intelligence reports regarding the existence of the snuffies in the area near Kirkuk.
Kirkuk lies in territory disputed between the federal government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil.
Baghdad and Erbil are still engaged in talks aimed at forming two joint brigades in the disputed areas. Earlier this year, the Iraqi defense ministry allocated a special budget for the joint brigades between Iraqi security forces and the Peshmerga to fight ISIS in the 2023 budget bill.
On June 11, two commanders of the Iraqi army were killed and five others were maimed during an ISIS attack near Kirkuk. ISIS later grabbed credit for the attack.
The snuffies have particularly taken shelter in the security vacuum in parts of northern Iraq that are disputed between Baghdad and Erbil, stretching across several provinces including Diyala, Salahaddin, and Kirkuk.
In April the global coalition to fight ISIS said there had been a drop in ISIS attacks on both sides of the border between Syria and Iraq.
| An Nahar adds: |
After the suspected IS members were identified, Iraqi troops approached and a clash erupted, added the statement late Sunday.
The jihadists "were surrounded and killed, the explosive belts they were wearing were detonated", it said.
In March, a senior Iraqi military official said IS had between 400 and 500 active fighters in the Shiite-majority country.