Baghdad: Suspected extremists on motorcycles stormed a village north of Baghdad late on Monday, killing eight Iraqi civilians. Although the attack was not immediately claimed, the village served as a focal point of resistance to the Daesh organization in 2014 as it swept into neighboring Syria and large parts of Iraq.
It came on the day Daesh extremists killed nine federal police in an ambush in the more northern province of Kirkuk.
According to Odai Al-Khadran, mayor of the district center Al-Khalis, "A group of terrorists on motorcycles attacked the village of Albu Bali from three sides.
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Farmers live in the village and dozens of residents gathered to escape the terrorist attack, he said, adding that eight people were killed and three were injured.
A member of the interior ministry who asked not to be named said IS was responsible for the attack, noting that in 2014, locals had established a paramilitary group to defend their territory from the jihadists.
According to the Defense Ministry, a senior delegation was sent to Diyala province "to shed light on the circumstances of the criminal action".
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In 2014, Daesh extremists captured significant parts of Iraq and Syria, establishing a brutal "caliphate" which they ruled brutally until routed by Iraqi forces backed by a US-led military coalition in late 2017. Did.
IS lost its last stronghold in Syria in 2019, near the Iraqi border.
A UN report earlier this year said that despite setbacks that have made Daesh a mere shadow of its former self, the organization still manages an underground network of between 6,000 and 10,000 fighters to carry out attacks on both sides of the strait.
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Last Wednesday, three Iraqi soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb blast in a military vehicle in farmland north of Baghdad, according to the Defense Ministry.