SAMARA: Suspected Daesh group militants have killed eight people and wounded four others in two attacks in northern Iraq, security officials said Monday.
The extremist group has stepped up its attacks since the release of a purported new audio message late last month from Daesh leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.
On Monday “seven civilians were killed when jihadists fired on houses in the village of Albu Shaher,” 25 kilometers (15 miles) west of Kirkuk, a multi-ethnic city north of Baghdad, a security services official told AFP.
A police officer was wounded in that attack, which also saw militants raid a currency exchange office and steal $20,000 (17,225 euros) before fleeing, he added.
Late on Sunday, a man was shot dead and three others were wounded outside a mosque north of Baghdad.
The attack took place in the village of Khanouka near Ash-Sharqat, one of the last areas retaken by government forces from Daesh last year, 100 kilometers north of the capital, a police officer said.
“The man, aged 80, had just finished praying (and was leaving the mosque) when the jihadists opened fire at him,” the officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either of the attacks.
According to the police officer, Daesh holdouts are still present in the hills of Khanouka and other mountainous and desert regions of Iraq.
Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi declared “victory” in December in the fight against Daesh, which seized nearly a third of the country in 2014.
But sleeper cells continue to launch attacks from sparsely populated areas.
According to Hisham Al-Hashemi, an expert on radical Islamist groups, about 2,000 Daesh militants are still active in Iraq.
The elusive leader of the Daesh group, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, called on Muslims to wage “jihad” in a purported new audio recording released on August 22.
Eight civilians killed in Iraq in suspected Daesh attacks
Eight civilians killed in Iraq in suspected Daesh attacks
- The extremist group has stepped up its attacks since the release of a purported new audio message by Baghdadi
US military visits contested area in northern Syria to defuse rising tensions
- US has good relations with both sides and has urged calm
DEIR HAFER, Syria: A US military delegation arrived in a contested area of northern Syria on Friday following rising tensions between the Syrian government and a Kurdish-led force that controls much of the northeast.
The US has good relations with both sides and has urged calm. A spokesperson for the US military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Earlier in the day, scores of people carrying their belongings arrived in government-held areas in northern Syria ahead of a possible offensive by Syrian troops on territory held by Kurdish-led fighters east of the city of Aleppo.
Many of the civilians who fled were seen using side roads to reach government-held areas because the main highway was blocked by a checkpoint in the town of Deir Hafer normally controlled by the Kurdish-led and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF.
The Syrian army said late Wednesday that civilians would be able to evacuate through the “humanitarian corridor” from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday and then extended the evacuation period another day. The announcement appeared to signal plans for an offensive against the SDF in the area.
There have been limited exchanges of fire between the two sides.
Men, women and children arrived in cars and pickup trucks that were packed with bags of clothes, mattresses and other belongings. They were met by local officials who directed them to shelters.
In other areas, people crossed canals on small boats and crossed a heavily damaged pedestrian bridge to reach the side held by government forces.
The SDF closed the main highway but more than 11,000 people were still able to reach government-held areas on other roads, Syrian state TV reported.
A US military convoy arrived in Deir Hafer in the early afternoon accompanied by SDF officials. Associated Press journalists saw SDF leaders and American officials enter one of the government buildings, where they met inside for more than an hour before departing the area.
Inside Deir Hafer, many shops were closed and people stayed home.
“When I saw people leaving I came here,” said Umm Talal, who arrived in the government-held area with her husband and children. She added that the road appeared safe and her husband plans to return to their home.
Abu Mohammed said he came from the town of Maskana after hearing the government had opened a safe corridor, “only to be surprised when we arrived at Deir Hafer and found it closed.”
SDF fighters were preventing people from crossing through Syria’s main east-west highway and forcing them to take a side road, he said.
Kortay Khalil, an SDF official at the Deir Hafer the checkpoint, said they had closed it because the government closed other crossings.
“This crossing was periodically closed even before these events, but people are leaving through other routes, and we are not preventing them,” he said. “If we wanted to prevent them, no one would be able to leave the area.”
The tensions in the Deir Hafer area come after several days of intense clashes last week in Aleppo, previously Syria’s largest city and commercial center, that ended with the evacuation of Kurdish fighters from three neighborhoods north of the city that were then taken over by government forces.
The fighting broke out as negotiations stalled between Damascus and the SDF over an agreement reached in March to integrate their forces and for the central government to take control of institutions including border crossings and oil fields in the northeast.
The US special envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, posted on X on Friday that Washington remains in close contact with all parties in Syria, “working around the clock to lower the temperature, prevent escalation, and return to integration talks between the Syrian government and the SDF.”
The SDF for years has been the main US partner in Syria in fighting against the Daesh group, but Turkiye considers the SDF a terrorist organization because of its association with Kurdish separatist insurgents in Turkiye.
