Four villagers were killed and eight members of the security forces were injured Friday in an attack by the extremist militants of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria ISIS in a village southeast of Mosul, an officer anonymously told KirkukNow.
IS militants bombed the village of Khatab in Makhmur district, southeast of Ninewa, by mortars then stormed the village late hours of Friday.
“Four villagers were killed in direct clashes with Daesh militants, two of them are brothers. When Popular Mobilization Forces PMF head to backup the villagers, an IED planted at the entrance of the village exploded, eight members of PMF were injured,” the source added.
Makhmur district located about 60 kilometers southwest of Erbil yet under control of Iraqi federal government, consists of three sub-districts and 40 villages yet only four villages are still inhabited, figures from local administrations show.
IS militants are regrouping in the rural areas of the disputed territories between Baghdad and Erbil. They are targeting Iraqi forces and civilians in the suburbs of Diyla, Kirkuk Ninawa, Salahaddin and Erbil, leaving tens of casualties and causing material damage to power towers, oil wells, houses, cattle, orchards and vehicles of the villagers.
“We have heard mortar bombing, then about ten militants stormed our village so the villagers confronted for half an hour with them yet four of us were killed,” a villager anonymously told KirkukNow.
A week ago, a soldier was killed when IS militants attacked Iraqi army troops in Qarachukh mountains in Makhmur district on Saturday night, security source said.
The Mountains of Qarachukh are located in the triangle of Erbil-Ninawa-Kirkuk, southeast of Mosul, where several military operations were launched by the Iraqi and Kurdish forces.
In the early hours of August 7th, ISIS militants disguised in military uniforms installed a security checkpoint near the village of Kandal of Makhmur and managed to abduct nine locals, four of them were freed by the security forces.
The next day, IS militants abducted a shepherd in a village of Makhmur raising the number of the abducted into six.
On August 12th, two of the hostages were released while they asked for 100,000 American dollars USD in return of freeing each of the four other hostages, local security officials and relatives told KirkukNow.
