BAGHDAD (Dispatches) – Unknown militants on Tuesday detonated seven power transmission towers in Iraq’s northern province of Kirkuk, the country’s Ministry of Electricity said in a statement.
The attack took place near the town of al-Riyadh in the south of the namesake provincial capital Kirkuk, which itself is located some 250 kilometers north of Baghdad, and sabotaged the towers that link Kirkuk to Baiji in the neighboring Salahudin province, the statement said.
“Up to 27 power transmission towers were sabotaged in the provinces of Nineveh, Kirkuk, and Salahudin within one week,” the statement said, adding that technical teams accompanied by the Iraqi security forces have rushed to the scene to repair the towers.
During the past few days, many power transmission towers were vandalized in the provinces of Salahudin, Kirkuk, and Nineveh, as well as in al-Nebai and Tarmiyah areas north of the capital Baghdad, which led to the destruction of towers and power outages in large areas.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi asked the army to strengthen the protection of power transmission lines.
Separately, a source from Salahudin’s provincial police said Daesh terrorists kidnapped two shepherds in Salahudin province in the north of Baghdad.
The incident took place at dawn when the terrorists kidnapped the two from a village located east of the provincial capital Tikrit, some 170 kilometers north of Baghdad, and took them to their hideouts in Himreen mountain range, Mohammed al-Bazi told Xinhua.
Meanwhile, Iraqi security forces on Monday carried out an operation in north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, killing three Daesh terrorists, a military statement said.
A joint army and popular Hashd al-Sha’abi force ambushed a group of Daesh terrorists in a rural area near the town of Tarmoyah, some 30 kilometers north of Baghdad, killing the three militants who were planning to carry out terrorist attacks, the Hashd al-Sha’abi said in a statement.