3 Peshmerga fighters killed in Iraq’s Kirkuk province

BAGHDAD

Three Kurdish Peshmerga fighters were killed Friday by a blast that went off in Iraq’s northern Kirkuk province, according to a local security source.

“Two bombs went off while Peshmerga forces were conducting a security patrol on the outskirts of the town of Daquq,” Army Captain Kamran Mahmoud told Anadolu Agency.

According to Mahmoud, three Peshmerga fighters, including one officer, were killed in the blast.

The Daesh terrorist group remains in control of large swathes of territory in southwestern Kirkuk, including the Hawija district.

Peshmerga forces loyal to northern Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government, meanwhile, have controlled the rest of the province since the Iraqi army withdrew from the area before Daesh’s 2014 onslaught.

Reporting by Hussein al-Amir; Writing by Mahmoud Barakat