Five suspected ISIS militants killed in Kirkuk: Iraqi military  

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Iraqi forces in Kirkuk on Sunday announced that they had killed five suspected ISIS militants  in an operation, according to a press release.

Wearing “explosive belts”, three members of the group were killed in the Turkalan area in southwestern Kirkuk by the Iraqi Army’s Eighth Division soldiers, a statement from the Security Media Cell read.

Overall, the forces had killed five "terrorists" in the area, according to the press release.

As a result of the operation, an Iraqi soldier was killed and another one was wounded, per the release.

Three weapons belonging to the suspected members were confiscated, it added.

The operation comes as Iraqi fighter jets on Saturday targeted a remote area in the province, where they killed a number of suspected ISIS militants.

Read More: Iraqi airstrike kills suspected ISIS militants in Kirkuk

The Iraqi forces have ramped up their anti-ISIS operations in recent days following the terror group’s ambush on an Iraqi army outpost in early June that had killed at least two soldiers and wounded three others.

Saturday’s airstrikes against the group came in retaliation for the June 11 deadly attack on the army, according to a statement from the military.

Although the group was territorially announced defeated in 2017 by the then-Iraqi government, it has proven its capability of launching small-scale attacks against security forces and civilians, particularly in the remote areas of the north and west.

The group once controlled a third of the country following its rapid rise in 2014, leading to the displacement of over a million and thousands of causalities among the security forces and civilian population.

The lack of security cooperation between the Kurdistan Region forces and the Iraqi army in the disputed territories is blamed for the ongoing threats from the group.

Despite repeated calls by the Kurdistan Region’s security and political leaders to deploy joint brigades in areas containing ISIS insurgents, no concrete actions had been taken so far, Kurdish officials have said on several occasions. 

Additional reporting by Kirkuk reporter Hemin Dalo