ERBIL — A group of over ten armed men on Wednesday night attacked a Kurdish village in north of Kirkuk province where they searched the houses for three members of the Iraqi Oil Police, locals said.

The attack targeted Lihebani village near Sargarran subdistrict of Kirkuk, where the armed men broke into several houses to search for the three people, a father and two sons, who are working as police officers protecting Kirkuk oil wells, a resident of Lihebani said.

They did not find the people but took seven cell phones of the residents before the Peshmerga forces of a nearby political representation office of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) rushed to push them out of the village.

No one was hurt during the attack, but it has caused panic among the people, BasNews reporter confirmed.

Though not confirmed by any official institutions, locals speculated the assailants to be members of the Islamic State (IS) who has lost ground but maintains presence in the region through insurgency attacks.

Kirkuk is among the main territories disputed between the Kurdistan Region and Iraqi government. It was under the control of the Kurds until October 2017 when the Iraqi Army, supported by the Iran-backed militias overran the Peshmerga positions and took over the area, since when the violations against the Kurdish majority have significantly increased.