Five family members killed in alleged ISIS attack near Iraq’s Mosul

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Assailants believed to be affiliated with the so-called Islamic State killed five members of a family on Wednesday when they attacked their house near Iraq’s embattled city of Mosul, security sources said.

A statement from the Iraqi interior ministry blamed “terrorist elements” for the incident, noting that the attack took place at the residence of a village community supervisor, or “Mukhtar,” in the Hammam al-Alil area, south of Mosul.

The gunmen killed the Mukhtar, his two sons, his nephew, his mother, and wounded two others, a security source who asked to remain anonymous told Kurdistan 24.

The dead were taken to a forensics facility while the injured were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

Although Iraq declared a military defeat against the Islamic State in December 2017, the extremist group continues to carry out insurgency-style attacks in formerly liberated areas like Mosul and even places it never controlled like the nation's capital of Baghdad.

Senior Kurdistan Region officials have urged authorities to investigate the root causes of the terror group’s emergence to ensure it does not re-emerge.

On Wednesday, the head of the Commission on Human Rights in the Nineveh Provincial Council, Ghazwan Hamid Daoudi, said the deadly incident in Mosul occurred because of “political conflicts” and the Iraqi government’s “failure to take security measures to protect the lives of people.”

“The political factions should pay attention to their responsibilities in the protection of people and the homeland,” Daoudi said in a statement.

“We will never accept a repetition of the scenario which led to the Islamic State’s rise in 2014."

Editing by John J. Catherine