Secretary General of the Kurdish Peshmerga Ministry, Lieutenant General Jabbar Yawar said on Friday that the empty areas between the army and the Peshmerga forces pose a danger to the region.
Yawar said that ISIS elements' movements have increased in several areas, including Diyala, Hamrin, the outskirts of Tuz khurmato, Kefri and areas south of Kirkuk.
Some statistics revealed that ISIS has carried out 456 terrorist operations in 2018 in these areas, causing the death of 1742 people from the Iraqi security forces and civilians, Yawar said. During the first four months of 2019, ISIS carried out 100 terrorist operations, killing 407 people, he added.
The reason for the emergence of ISIS in these areas is the federal forces' failure to control them, or the presence of empty areas that are not controlled by neither the army nor the Peshmerga, reaching 40 kilometers.