BAGHDAD (Dispatches) – Iraqi security forces launched an operation on Saturday to hunt down remnants of Daesh terrorists at rugged rural area in northern central Iraq, the Iraqi military said.
On Saturday morning, the troops backed by paramilitary Hashd Shaabi brigades advanced from three directions to clear Mteibijah area near the border between the provinces of Salahudin and Diyala, the media office of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command (JOC) said in a brief statement.
At the end of the day, the troops searched 14 villages scattered in the area and managed to destroy a Daesh hideout and detonated nine roadside bombs, the JOC said in a separate statement.
The troops will continue the operation in the coming days until they clear the whole the sprawling rugged area that extend from western part of Diyala to Himreen mountainous area and nearby Mteibijah area in the neighboring Salahudin province.
Dozens of Daesh terrorists fled their former bases in Salahudin province and Hawijah area in west of Kirkuk after the Iraqi forces cleared these areas from the extremist militants during anti-IS offensives in the past few months.
On Dec. 9, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi officially declared full liberation of Iraq from Daesh terrorists after Iraqi forces recaptured all the areas once seized by the extremist group.
Meanwhile, Iraqi security forces have found two mass graves in the country’s northern province of Nineveh, which contain the bodies of roughly a hundred members of the Izadi minority group believed to have been executed by Daesh terrorists.
A local source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said government troops, supported by fighters from the Popular Mobilization Units, commonly known by the Arabic name Hashd al-Sha’abi, unearthed the mass graves in the town of Sinjar, situated over 400 kilometers northwest of the capital Baghdad, on Saturday morning. The graves contained the bodies of 90 people, Arabic-language al-Ghad Press news agency reported.
The victims apparently came from the nearby villages of Mujamma al-Jazirah and al-Qabousiyah.
The grisly findings were made only three days after a mass grave containing the remains of at least 50 people was found in Sinjar.
On November 27, Iraqi army forces uncovered an Izadi mass grave in al-Ba'aj town, which was under control of Daesh until June this year. It contained the bodies of 98 people.
A week earlier, government forces had found a mass grave containing the bodies of 73 people, including women and children, executed by Daesh in Rambussi area near the town of Qahtaniyah, located about 100 kilometers from Mosul.
Back in August 2014, Daesh overran Sinjar, killing, raping, and enslaving large numbers of Izadi Kurds.
Sinajr was recaptured in November 2015, during an operation by Kurdish Peshmerga forces and Izadi fighters.