IS militants kill two members for killing third southwestern Kirkuk
Members of the Islamic State. File photo.
A statement by Kurdistan’s Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) said that the Islamic State extremists in Hawija shot two members of the group including Mahmoud abdullah Hussein Sultan and Mostafa Taha Menheih.
The militants, according to the statement, killed the two members for killing a third member called Abu Omar, who owns a foreign exchange bureau in Hawija.
The reason behind killing the third member was not declared.
Since taking over large areas of Iraq in 2014 to proclaim an “Islamic Caliphate”, Islamic State militants held several towns and regions in southwestern Kirkuk, most notably the strategic town of Hawija. Iraqi authorities postponed an operation to liberate the town last year, instead they moved onto central Mosul.
The Iraqi government is expected to launch an offensive to retake IS-occupied areas in Kirkuk once it eliminates militants from Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city and the Islamic State where a security offensive has been running since October.
where thousands of civilians fled to refugee camps while others have been executed for either attempting to escape or collaborating with security.