BAGHDAD (Dispatches) – Four Iraqi Kurdish militants were killed in a Daesh attack, a security official said Monday, the third such assault in less than two weeks.
Five other militants were wounded in the violence late Sunday in northern Iraq that targeted an outpost north of Kirkuk, the source said.
Kurdish forces confirmed the deadly attack but did not say how the victims were killed in wounded, in a statement accusing Daesh of responsibility.
It was the third attack blamed on Daesh terrorists in less than two weeks against the Kurdish forces in northern Iraq.
On Thursday, Daesh claimed responsibility for an assault south of the Kurdish capital of Irbil that killed at least nine Peshmerga members and three civilians.
At the end of November, five Peshmergas were killed in a roadside bombing also claimed by the terrorist group.
Daesh seized swathes of Iraq in an offensive in 2014, before being beaten back by a counter-insurgency campaign.
The Iraqi government declared the terrorist group defeated in late 2017, although the Daesh retains sleeper cells which still strike security forces with hit-and-run attacks.
In another development in the country, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi and British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss on Monday discussed ending the role of the U.S.-led troops in Iraq.
Al-Kadhimi received a phone call from Truss, and the two discussed the coordination between Baghdad and London regarding ending the role of the U.S.-led troops, a statement by al-Kadhimi’s media office said.
On Nov. 24, Tahseen al-Khafaji, spokesman of the Iraqi Operations Command, said the foreign troops would leave Iraq within 15 days.
“Ending the presence of the foreign forces is proceeding according to the plan, and there is no military base for them except for limited presence in Ayn al-Asad Air Base in the western province of Anbar,” al-Khafaji said.
On Jan. 5, 2020, the Iraqi parliament passed a resolution requiring the government to end the presence of foreign troops in the country.
In July this year, the United States and Iraq held a session of strategic dialogue, during which the two countries agreed on withdrawing all U.S. troops from Iraq by Dec. 31.