BAGHDAD, May 24 (NNN-NINA) – A total of six people were killed and five wounded yesterday, in attacks by militants of the Daesh group, in the provinces of Kirkuk and Diyala, a provincial official and a police source said.
In the northern province of Kirkuk, the militants took advantage of a dust storm that swept through much of Iraq earlier in the day, and set fire to a wheat farm in the Taza area, outside the namesake provincial capital Kirkuk, some 250 km north of Baghdad, the Mayor of Taza, Hussein Adil, said.
The fire prompted a joint force from the Iraqi police and paramilitary Hashd Shaabi fighters with the villagers, to rush to the farm to put out the fire, when the extremist militants opened fire on them, leaving three policemen and two villagers dead, Adil said.
The extremist militants also detonated a roadside bomb near a police vehicle, damaging the vehicle without human casualty, the mayor said.
The attackers fled the scene after reinforcement troops arrived in the area, he added.
In Iraq’s eastern province of Diyala, the militants attacked a village in the evening, near the town of Jalawlaa, about 135 km north-east of Baghdad, killing a villager and wounding five others, including three women, Major Alaa al-Saadi from the provincial police, said.
Over the past few months, Iraqi security forces have conducted operations against the extremist militants to crack down on their intensified activities.– NNN-NINA
