Wild boars have killed three Isis militants who were setting up an ambush in the Hamrin mountains in Iraq

A herd of wild boar mauled three Islamic State militants to death and injured five others in Iraq while the extremists were setting up an ambush, locals claimed.

The men were said to have taken cover in a bed of reeds near fields in the Hamrin mountains, about 55 miles southwest of Kirkuk. They were planning an attack on tribesmen who had formed anti-Isis brigades and had fled to the mountains when the jihadists seized the nearby town of Hawija in mid-2014.

Sheikh Anwar al-Assi, a chief of the local Ubaid tribe and supervisor of the anti-Isis forces, told The Times that at least eight fighters had hidden in dense reeds.“It is likely their movement disturbed a herd of wild pigs, which inhabit the area