BAGHDAD, July 24 (Xinhua) -- A local tribe leader and an Islamic State (IS) militant were killed Wednesday in separate attacks by the extremist militants on two villages in Iraq's northern province of Nineveh.
One incident took place at dawn, when three IS militants infiltrated into a village near the town of Hammam al-Alil, some 20 km south of the provincial capital Mosul, and shot dead a local tribe leader after they broke into his house, Khalaf al-Jubouri, mayor of the town, told Xinhua.
The attackers also wounded the nephew of the tribe leader, al-Jubouri said, adding that many of armed villagers clashed with the attackers and forced them to withdraw.
Separately, IS militants attacked the Yazidi village in east of the town of Sinjar, some 100 km west of Mosul, prompting the security forces to repel the attack and killed one of them, Ziad Burjus from the local police told Xinhua.
According to Burjus, reinforcement troops from the paramilitary tribal fighters and the provincial police arrived at the scene and launched a search campaign looking for the attackers in the area.
The security situation in Iraq was dramatically improved after Iraqi security forces fully defeated the extremist IS militants across the country late in 2017.
IS remnants, however, have since melted in urban areas or resorted to deserts and rugged areas as safe havens, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians.
