The Islamic State group killed 27 members of a paramilitary group in an ambush in Iraq, the pro-government force said Monday, underlining the threat still posed by the jihadists despite Baghdad's declaration of victory.

IS members disguised as soldiers attacked a Hashed al-Shaabi unit in the Hawija region about 300 kilometres (185 miles) north of Baghdad on Sunday evening, the auxiliary force said in a statement.

"The attackers were dressed in military uniforms and during the fighting 27 of our heroes were martyred," said the Hashed, a key partner of the government in the battle against IS.

The extremist group, which has suffered a string of battlefield defeats in Syria and Iraq, claimed responsibility for the attack in an online statement.

The Hashed said the unit was conducting operations to "arrest terrorists and dismantle sleeping cells" around the city, in the province of Kirkuk,

A Hashed official who asked to remain anonymous told AFP the jihadists, disguised as soldiers, had set up a checkpoint close to Hawija.

They asked the Hashed paramilitaries to stop, get out of their vehicles and stand beside the road, on the pretext of conducting a search.

They then shot the Hashed fighters and fled, the official said.

Reinforcements arrived too late to stop the attack.

A senior police officer in the province, who also asked not to be named, said most of the bodies had been beheaded.

It was the deadliest attack against Hashed fighters since October when pro-government forces retook Hawija, which was the jihadists' last urban bastion in northern Iraq.

Iraq in December declared victory against IS after a years-long battle to retake large swathes of territory the extremists had seized in 2014.

But the Hashed says IS has not completely disappeared and that "sleeper cells" have been fighting a guerrilla war against it.

Iraq hands 6-year jail term to German jihadist teen: judiciary
Baghdad (AFP) Feb 19, 2018 - An Iraqi court has sentenced a German teenager to six years in jail for membership of the Islamic State group and illegal entry into the country, a judicial source said Monday.

The source told AFP that the girl, aged 17, was on Sunday handed a five-year term for belonging to IS and one year in prison for crossing illegally into Iraq.

On January 21, a German woman of Moroccan origin was sentenced to death by hanging on charges of providing "logistical support and helping the terrorist group to carry out crimes".

The two Germans are among hundreds of foreign suspected jihadists held by Iraqi authorities, who in December announced the defeat of IS after a gruelling three-year battle.

According to media reports in Germany, the condemned woman, named Lamia K., had left Mannheim in August 2014. She was arrested by Iraqi forces during the final stages last July of the battle for the northern city of Mosul.

At least two other German women are being held in prison in Iraq, including the teenager Linda W., who had disappeared from home in the summer of 2016, shortly after converting to Islam.

The girl from Pulsnitz in Saxony, in a meeting with German journalists in Baghdad last summer, said she wanted to return to her family and regretted her actions.

In a separate case, a suspected French jihadist, who had been sentenced to seven months in prison for illegal entry, was on Monday ordered released and deported on the basis of time served.

On Sunday, a Turkish woman was sentenced to death and 11 other foreign widows who fighter husbands had been killed to life in jail for belonging to IS.

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Battle to free Mosul of IS 'intellectual terrorism'
Mosul, Iraq (AFP) Feb 17, 2018
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