ISIS militants wearing Iraqi military uniforms kill 6 members of family, 2 others outside Tikrit

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Iraqi authorities have announced that the Islamic State was behind a brutal massacre in a village south of the central Iraqi city of Tikrit on Friday morning, killing six members of one family.

In addition to the family members, which included a mother and daughter, a policeman and a lawyer were also reportedly left dead.

In the hours following the incident, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, in which gunmen in military uniforms stormed several houses in al-Boudur, located in Salahuddin province.

Those who carried out the attack "infiltrated the village on foot, wearing military uniforms under the pretext of searching the houses of the murdered on the outskirts of the village, where they carried out their treacherous crime," read a statement released later that day by Iraq's Joint Operations Command.

"Security forces have identified the person most responsible for the crime," it continued, adding, "He is a former resident of the village who had been previously expelled from there by other residents. They had rejected his terrorist actions, so he committed the crime as an act of vengeance against innocent people."

In its claim of responsibility published online, the Islamic State alleged that the family killed had instead been working as a "spy cell" for Iran-backed militias of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) present in the area.

The extremist group's militants have recently carried out attacks, assassinations, and kidnappings in the area against members of the police and military.

Iraq declared a “final victory” over the Islamic State in late 2017 as well, but the group has shown that it can still launch deadly attacks using guerrilla tactics. The extremist group has escalated its recent activity in the provinces of Kirkuk, Diyala, and Salahuddin.

On Thursday, a commander of Kurdish Peshmerga forces stationed northward in the vicinity of the disputed town of Makhmour told Kurdistan 24 that the US-led Coalition to defeat the Islamic State had carried out over two dozen airstrikes against the group over the previous day.

Read More: Peshmerga leader says ISIS cells bombed 28 times near Makhmour

"So far, 10 different cells have been targeted. Such operations are set to continue until all terrorists are neutralized," wrote General Sirwan Barzani in a post on social media.

Editing by John J. Catherine