Kurdistan: 1760 Peshmerga soldiers killed in anti-IS war since 2014
Kurdish Peshmerga forces. File photo.
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) The number of Kurdish fighters killed during three years since the breakout of the Iraqi war against Islamic State militants has stood at 1760, Kurdistan Region’s Government said Sunday.
Mahmoud Haji Saleh, the Kurdish Martyrs Affairs Minister, said 9000 fighters have also been wounded, while 63 others went missing since the start of the war against the Islamic State in the summer of 2014.
Peshmerga, the army force of the Kurdistan autonomous region, had been actively participating in the U.S.-backed Iraqi government’s campaign against Islamic State militants who emerged in 2014 to proclaim an “Islamic Caliphate” in Iraq and neighboring Syria.
The government’s campaign to drive Islamic State militants out of their previously proclaimed capital, Mosul, is nearing an end, with only a few pockets held by the group await liberation.
Erbil and Baghdad had engaged in a political war of words a few months ago regarding control over areas recaptured from IS by Peshmerga troops to which Erbil had originally claimed sovereignty. While several political figures from Erbil reiterated that their region would not withdraw troops from those regions, Baghdad urged to postpone the dispute to after the final elimination of the Islamic State from the country.