Security sources revealed the escape of a number of elements of the ISIS extremist group from the checkpoints and their headquarters after being subjected to heavy shelling, saying that ISIS investigation Officer was killed during the shelling. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed support for the referendum to achieve independence of Iraqi region of Kurdistan.

An Iraqi air raid on Islamic State’s havens in southwestern Kirkuk killed the group’s chief “iinvestigator” and companions, intelligence sources said Wednesday.

Alsumaria News quoted the sources saying that Abu Omar al-Iraqi was killed when an Islamic State security unit was bombarded by Iraqi air forces in central Hawija, the group’s bastion in Kirkuk. Four of his companions were also killed in the raid, according to the sources. The offensive prompted several fighters to leave their positions, the sources added.

The Iraqi government said late August that Hawija, which IS has held since 2014, was the next target of its operations against the extremist group. The government troops had, so far, recaptured Mosul, IS’s former capital, and the town of Tal Afar, west of Mosul.

On Sunday, Dubai-based Al Arabiya network many of Islamic State’s senior leaders had fled Hawija along with their families. It also said more than 15 U.S. army vehicles deployed at al-Farraj, a region 90 kilometers southeast of Mosul on the borders with Kirkuk, preparing to back up Iraqi forces in their anticipated offensives.

The United Nations had predicted at least 114.000 civilians to flee Hawija as the battle starts. Last week, Yahia Rasoul, spokesperson of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command, said there were 2000 Islamic State militants inside Hawija. In the same context, Islamic State militants have executed five young people in front of their families who had been caught fleeing the group’s havens in western Anbar towards security-held areas.

Alghad Press quoted a local source saying that three families, mostly women, were caught by the militants fleeing the town of Qaim, on Anbar’s western borders with Syria, towards the city of Rutba to the east. The militants brought the civilians back into Qaim and executed five young people in front of their families, according to the source.

Islamic State militants have systematically executed civilians fleeing areas they had taken over since 2014. Many other civilians were also executed for contacting security forces. Recent reports from Anbar have also said that the militants had forcibly recruited young people to fight for the group.

Islamic State has held the towns of Annah, Rawa and Qaim since 2014, when it proclaimed an Islamic “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria. Recent news reports have said military reinforcements were sent to areas near those towns preparing for an invasion against IS. The Iraqi Joint Operations Command has, meanwhile, declared that its coming battle would be in IS-held Hawija, southwest of Kirkuk. So far, U.S.-backed government forces recaptured Mosul, Islamic State’s former capital, and the town of Tal Afar, a major haven west of Mosul.

In Ramadi, Security troops have imposed curfew in the wake of a murder of a five-member family in north of Ramadi, Anbar, a security source said on Wednesday. “Security troops found a murdered family, composed of five persons, in al-bou Theyab island, north of Ramadi,” the source said, adding that “the family was shot dead.”

“Security cordoned off the accident spot and imposed curfew in the island,” the source, who preferred anonymity, added, indicating that the accident is not a terrorist one.

Earlier this month, curfew was imposed in the wake of a murder of a whole family in east of the city.

Anbar’s western towns of Anah, Qaim and Rawa are still held by the extremist group since 2014, when it occupied one third of Iraq to proclaim a self-styled Islamic Caliphate. Iraqi troops were able to return life back to normal in the biggest cities of Anbar including Fallujah, Ramadi and others after recapturing them.

Fighter jets from the Iraqi army and the international coalition regularly pound IS locations in the province. Violence in the country has surged further with the emergence of Islamic State Sunni extremist militants who proclaimed an “Islamic Caliphate” in Iraq and Syria in 2014.

A monthly count by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), which excludes security members deaths, said 297 Iraqis, were killed and injured due to violence and armed conflicts during the month of ِAugust. Baghdad was the most affected province with 45 deaths and 135 injuries.

On the political side, Israel supports the establishment of a Kurdish state, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday, as Kurds in Iraq gear up for a referendum on independence that lawmakers in Baghdad oppose.

Israel has maintained discreet military, intelligence and business ties with the Kurds since the 1960s, viewing the minority ethnic group -- whose indigenous population is split between Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran -- as a buffer against shared Arab adversaries.

On Tuesday, Iraq’s Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani said he would press ahead with the Sept. 25 referendum despite a vote by Iraq’s parliament rejecting it.

“(Israel) supports the legitimate efforts of the Kurdish people to achieve their own state,” Netanyahu said, in remarks sent to foreign correspondents by his office.

Western powers are concerned a plebiscite in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region - including the oil-rich city of Kirkuk - could divert attention from the war against Islamic State militants.

Netanyahu said Israel does however consider the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) a terrorist group, taking the same position as Turkey, the United States and the European Union. An Israeli general told a conference in Washington last week that he personally did not regard the PKK, whose militants have been fighting Turkey for more than three decades, as a terrorist group. Netanyahu, who is due to address the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 19, voiced support for “the Kurds’ aspirations for independence” in a speech in 2014, saying they deserve “political independence”.

 

His latest remarks appeared to be a more direct endorsement of the creation of a Kurdish state.

But they will cut little ice in Baghdad, which has no diplomatic relations with Israel and has strong ties with Israel’s arch-foe Iran.

Iraq’s neighbors -- Turkey, Iran and Syria -- oppose the referendum, fearing it could fan separatism among their own ethnic Kurdish populations.

Kurds have sought an independent state since at least the end of World War One, when colonial powers divided up the Middle East after the collapse of the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire