US Coalition destroyed five Islamic State hideouts in the Hamrin mountains

The international coalition destroyed five Islamic State (ISIS) hideouts in the Hamrin mountain range, the coalition’s spokesperson announced on Sunday, amid an uptick in ISIS attacks in the disputed territories.

The offensive was also confirmed by Iraq’s top military spokesperson Yehia Rasool.

The coalition strikes come amid a recent uptick in reported ISIS attacks in the security vacuum void of Iraqi and Kurdish forces which stretches across parts of Kirkuk, Diyala, Salahaddin, and Nineveh provinces.

Over the past three weeks, ISIS has killed around a dozen Iraqi and Peshmerga soldiers.

In its weekly propaganda newspaper al-Naba, ISIS claimed on Thursday that it had conducted 62 attacks across Iraq between May 6 and May 12, killing and injuring 67 people.

Despite their territorial defeat in Iraq in 2017, ISIS militants operate in the disputed areas, regions that both Erbil and Baghdad claim as their own. A “historic distrust and competition” between Erbil and Baghdad has created a security gap that ISIS militants have “successfully exploited,” the Pentagon stated in a report earlier this month.

Erbil and Baghdad have reached an agreement on the joint deployment of forces in the security vacuum, Jabar Yawar, secretary-general of the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs, told Rudaw English on Friday.

The agreement came after a series of meetings between Iraq and Kurdistan Region military officials.

Source: Rudaw