MOSUL, Iraq
The latest Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s attack against peshmerga on Friday in northern Iraqi towns of Makhmour and Gwer in Nineveh province was led by the group’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a peshmerga commander claimed.
Sirwan Barzani, who leads Kurdish fighters in the Gwer-Makhmour region, said the ISIL’s latest bloody attack against Kurdish fighters killed 30 fighters and injured 42 others.
He said that around 500 the ISIL militants had crossed the Tigris River on boats and rafts and attacked the 30-kilometer front.
Meanwhile, Governor of Iraq’s Saladin district, Ahmed al-Jubouri, opposed the Iraqi tribes’ demands for arms, citing security concerns.
“Iraqi patriots who want to clear the region from ISIL militants should join the security forces, instead of demanding armed tribes,” he said.
Jubouri claimed that some of the weapons that were given to Iraqi tribes by the former Iraqi government, were later spotted for sale in Baghdad’s bazaars and he said that this meant a breakdown of national security.
Iraq has been gripped by a security vacuum since June, when the ISIL stormed the northern province of Mosul and declared what it called a caliphate in Iraq and Syria.
The U.S. is leading an international coalition that has carried out numerous airstrikes against ISIL in Iraq and Syria since the militant group took over Mosul, in northern Iraq, in June.
