One oil facilities protection officer was shot to death late Tuesday in a suspected Islamic State (IS) group attack on a vulnerable well of the Khabbaz oil field, 25 kilometers southwest of Kirkuk.
Multiple security and industry officials confirmed the incident, which injured two others who were part of a unit guarding the field. Two more police officers are missing, according to an officer in the government-backed al-Hashid al-Ashayari paramilitary group, and security forces were still searching for them at the time of publication.
Tuesday’s attack is the latest in a series of increasingly frequent and successful operations by the IS group on oil-rich areas in northern Iraq, where they have taken advantage of a security vacuum.