A boy was killed and four others were injured, two of them members of Iraqi Security Forces ISF, in three security accidents and armed attacks in southern Kirkuk.
On Tuesday evening, a mortar shell exploded as two shepherd boys were trying to explore it. One of them died immediately and the other was injured in Rashad subdistrict.
According to a security source in the area, the mortar shell was a remnant of the three-year war (2014 - 2017) against the extremist militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), exploded in the village of Tal al-Sus.
"Two shepherd boys were playing with the mortar and exploded, killing one, aged 12, and injuring the other, aged 14," the source anonymously said.
In a separate incident, three missiles were fired at the third Battalion of the Iraqi army in the area of Chubghan in southern Daquq at 11 pm last night, Tuesday, followed by a clash between the army and a number of militants, who according to security forces were ISIL fighters.
"Two soldiers were wounded in the clashes," a security source in Daquq district told KirkukNow on the condition of anonymity.
The Iraqi security forces launched an operation in the area after the clashes, with the aim of searching for the scene of the attacks.
The threats posed by ISIS militants have remarkably decreased in the current year yet lately they are regrouping in the disputed territories between Baghdad and Erbil.
On July 24th, a villager was killed and six were injured, all members of one family, when a group of ISIS fighters stormed the village of Salama Anbaga in Diyala province, yet they were confronted by the villagers till the security forces joined for backup.
In the early hours of Wednesday, August 10th, an improvised explosive device IED exploded, a farmer driving a vehicle was injured.
Chubghan is an agricultural area located just two kilometers south of Daquq district, 44 km south of Kirkuk. However, farmers only visit their fields during the daytime due to security concerns.
Kirkuk, located 238 kilometers north of Baghdad, is an ethnically mixed province for 1.7 million Kurds, Sunni and Shiite Arabs, and Turkmen. It has long been at the center of disputed territories between Baghdad and Erbil.
Kirkuk is one of the main disputed territories in addition to Diyalah and Nineveh, that a three-stage process was outlined in Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution in 2005 to put an end to the disputes over these areas between the Kurdistan Region Government KRG and Federal Iraqi government dispute, through normalization, population census and a referendum on the status of the territories.
Currently, the Iraqi army, local and federal police, Brigade 61 of Special Forces along with Shiite paramilitary of Popular Mobilization Forces PMF, are under Kirkuk joint operations’ command, an umbrella for the security forces running the security of Kirkuk province.
