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A senior Islamic State group health official was killed in an operation in Iraq led by an elite Kurdish Peshmerga unit on Thursday, Kurdistan's Regional Security Council said in a statement on Sunday. 

Islam Taha Mohamad al-Obaidi, purportedly IS' chief health department official in Kirkuk province, was killed on January 5 in a joint operation involving Kurdish counter-terrorism forces (CTD) and the US-led international coalition in the town of Hawija, 30km west of Kirkuk. 

Obaidi, who went by the nom de guerre "Dr Moawiya", said the statement, was also involved in an attack in January 2015 that killed four Peshmerga personnel and the persecution of Yazidi women in Hawija.

Hawija fell under the control of IS when the extremist group swept vast swathes of northern and western Iraq during a series of rapid advances. 

A 2016 Human Rights found that many Yazidi women in the area had been forced to convert to Islam, kept in sexual slavery, and sold in slave markets. 

In October 2015 a joint operation involving Kurdish counter-terror forces and US Special Forces saw 69 hostages rescued from IS in Hawija. One US serviceman was killed during the operation.