SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Bodies of four Iraqi soldiers were discovered beheaded in disputed Kirkuk province, local police Saturday confirmed, adding that they were killed by the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists.
Spokesman to Kirkuk police Amir Nuri in a statement told Esta that four Iraqi soldiers were found beheaded in Kirkuk’s Chiman village.
The soldiers belonged to the 8th legion of the 31st brigade of the Iraqi army, according to the police official’s words.
In the meantime, the police official confirmed, “they were beheaded by the ISIS terrorists,” however, he did not further elaborate.
Esta has learned after the bodies were found the commander of Kirkuk Headquarters of the Iraqi joint operations arrived at the scene immediately, launching a probe as well as search operations for ISIS assailants.
Despite the fact that Baghdad declared victory over ISIS in 2017, a terrorist group that once used to hold a swath of territory in the light of its offensive back in 2014.
However, many of the terrorist militants still roam in the so-called disputed territories, claimed by both the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), and suffer from a security vacuum that ISIS remnants exploited to operate inside.
Disputed-Kirkuk province lies in an oil-rich and ethnically mixed part of the country. Control over the city has been contested by Kurdish and Iraqi authorities.
Kurdish forces used to control the city when the Iraqi army fled during the Islamic State offensive in 2014. But, the Iraqi forces retook the city in the wake of the Kurdish referendum for independence in 2017.
