An Islamic State attack near Hawija kills one federal policeman, the first since the US withdrawal

Islamic State fighters attacked a federal police site near Hawija on Monday, killing one policeman and wounding four, two security sources told Reuters. The post sits about 70 kilometres southwest of Kirkuk. It is the first reported Islamic State assault on Iraqi security forces since US troops finished their withdrawal from Iraq on 30 September.

There was no claim of responsibility by Monday evening. Security and army sources told Reuters the attackers were Islamic State militants who remain active in the Hawija belt. The sources said the men used semi-automatic machine guns and sniper fire against a federal police regiment.

The post and the cameras

A second account, carried by North Press from Iraqi security sources and the National Iraqi News Agency, put the target more tightly. The attack hit a position of the 3rd Battalion of the 9th Brigade of the Federal Police in the al-Bargiliya-al-Danadish area of Hawija district. The attackers opened fire and destroyed several thermal cameras at the site. Security forces then cordoned the ground and started a search. The four wounded were taken to hospital. Their injuries were described as varying in severity. No detailed official statement had come from Iraqi authorities when that account was filed.

The two reports agree on the dead, the wounded, the day, and the district. They do not agree on equipment. Reuters did not mention cameras. North Press did not mention sniper fire. Both are useful. A thermal camera on a rural police post is there to watch tracks at night. Destroying it is a different act from a hit-and-run volley, and it says the attackers got close enough to the position to wreck the sensors, not only to fire from a distance.

Why the date matters

Washington completed the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq on 30 September, ending the military mission. The United States had led the coalition that backed Iraqi units against Islamic State after the group lost its cities. The Pentagon said it would keep giving targeted training and intelligence, and that Iraqi forces would take full responsibility for suppressing what remains of the group.

Monday's attack is the first public test of that sentence. One dead policeman and four wounded is a small toll next to the years when Islamic State held Hawija. It is not a small fact for the regiment on that post. Hawija and parts of Kirkuk have stayed on the list of districts where cells hit security forces after the group lost territorial control. The oil city to the northeast is the reason the belt still draws troops. Kirkuk's fields are the prize in every argument over who polices the approaches.

The sources did not give a count of attackers, a direction of withdrawal, or any arrest. They did not say whether the thermal cameras were the aim or a target of chance. They did say the search was on. A cordon in al-Bargiliya-al-Danadish on a Monday afternoon is the Iraqi side of the new arrangement: no US quick-reaction force on the ground, a federal police battalion taking the fire, and an intelligence link that Washington says still exists but that has not been described in this case.

What the withdrawal did not end

Islamic State has not held a city in Iraq for years. Cells in the Hamrin hills and the Hawija countryside have kept a pattern of night shots at checkpoints, ambushes on rural roads, and raids on posts that sit between Kirkuk and the open ground to the southwest. Monday fits that pattern, with one addition. It is the first such attack the wire services have recorded after the last US troops left.

That does not prove a causal link. A cell can shoot a police post whether or not a US adviser is in Baghdad. It does fix a baseline. From 30 September, attacks of this kind land on Iraqi rolls alone. The federal police regiment near Hawija took the first one: one dead, four wounded, cameras smashed, no claim, no named attacker in custody.

The open question is whether Baghdad will treat Monday as a local contact or as the start of a count. If the next weeks stay quiet, the withdrawal's security bet holds in public. If posts in Hawija, Diyala and the Hamrin belt start reporting the same mix of sniper fire and broken cameras, the training-and-intelligence promise will be measured against a list of names, not against a communique.