Around 20 people living south of the Iraqi city of Kirkuk were kidnapped by militants of the Daesh* terrorist organisation, NRT broadcaster reported on Tuesday.
Militants attacked a village in the Rashad district, located south-west of Kirkuk, taking 14 locals hostage, Kurdish TV channel NRT reported, adding that the fate of the captives remained unknown.
This comes after declaration by the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi in December 2017 of the end of the country’s fight against the Daesh after the Iraqi troops re-established complete control over its border with Syria. After that, the Kirkuk province governor told Sputnik in February about so-called Daesh “sleeper cells” in the area.