Baghdad: An Iraqi soldier and a militant of the Islamic State (IS) group were killed in two incidents in the central and northern parts of the country, the Iraqi military said.
Acting on intelligence reports, a joint force from the Army and a paramilitary Hashd Shaabi shot dead an IS militant wearing an explosive belt in the Tarmiyah area, nearly 30-km north of the capital Baghdad, the media office of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command said on Sunday in a statement.
In a separate incident on Sunday, a soldier was killed and another wounded in an attack by IS militants on an army base near the city of Mosul, nearly 400-km north of Baghdad, an army source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
The source said the attack sparked a clash between the two sides before the attackers fled the scene, Xinhua news agency reported.
Iraqi security forces have been fighting IS militants over the past months to crack down on their intensified activities.
The security situation in Iraq has been improving since the defeat of the IS in 2017. However, its remnants have since melted into urban centres, deserts and rugged areas, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against the security forces and civilians.
Five Kurdish militants killed in Turkish drone strike in Iraq
Five militants of Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) were killed in a Turkish drone strike in Iraq’s northern province of Nineveh, official sources said.
The five PKK members, including a woman, were killed when a Turkish drone bombarded their vehicle moving near a village in the west of the provincial capital Mosul, nearly 400 km north of Baghdad, according to a statement by the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service.
The attack occurred at 2:20 p.m, on Sunday when a Turkish drone bombed a civilian vehicle in the west of Mosul and killed four men and a woman, said Governor of Nineveh Province Najm al-Jubouri in a separate statement.
Al-Jubouri strongly condemned the drone strike, saying such attacks would destabilise the security situation in the Iraqi province and demanding a protest by the Iraqi central government, Xinhua news agency reported.
The Turkish forces frequently carry out ground operations, airstrikes and artillery bombardments in Iraq’s semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan, especially the Qandil Mountains, the main base of the PKK.
The PKK is listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the US and the European Union.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by Siasat staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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