Four people, including two security forces personnel, were killed on Saturday in an ISIS attack on a village near Iraq’s Mosul, local and security sources said.
A security source, who asked not to be named, said that the night attack took place in a remote village near Makhmour district, south of Mosul, 300 km north of Baghdad.
Saleh al-Jubouri, director of the Qayyarah district, close to the site of the attack, said ISIS fighters attacked at around 2am a Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) security checkpoint.
A member of the PMF, an officer, mayor of the village and a civilian were killed.
The security source said seven people were wounded in the attack, in which light weapons and mortars were used.
The attack took place five days after a similar ISIS attack on a security checkpoint near southern Kirkuk that killed 13 members of the Federal Police.
The attacks took place days after a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron to Mosul during which he stressed that “we should not be complacent” in the face of terrorists, and warned that “ISIS still poses a threat.”
In late 2017, Iraq announced its victory over ISIS, after expelling the terrorist group from all the areas it had seized in 2014.
Since then, the organization’s attacks in cities have decreased significantly, but Iraqi forces are still chasing sleeper cells in mountainous and desert areas.
The US is leading an international coalition in Iraq to combat ISIS. There are currently 2,500 US troops in Iraq helping local forces.
However, Washington announced in July its intention to end its “combat mission” in Iraq by the end of the year.
