BAGHDAD (Dispatches) – At least for Daesh militants were killed on Monday in airstrikes on the terrorists group’s position in the Salahudin Province north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, the Iraqi military said.
Yahia Rasoul, spokesperson for the commander-in-chief of the Iraqi forces, said in a statement that Iraqi aircraft conducted four airstrikes on the position in the Makhoul mountain range in the northern part of the province, killing four terrorists.
The provinces, which the terrorists had previously, controlled have witnessed intense activities of the militants during the past months, despite repeated military operations to hunt them down.
The security situation in Iraq has been improving since the Iraqi forces defeated the Daesh in 2017. However, Daesh remnants have since melted into urban centers, deserts and rugged areas, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians.
On Sunday, Iraq’s anti-terror Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), also known by their Arabic name as Hashd al-Sha’abi, launched a large-scale security operation to clear Daesh remnants from villages and rural areas in the eastern province of Diyala after a deadly Daesh terrorist attack in the area.
Talib al-Mousawi, commander of PMU operations in Diyala, said in a statement that the multipronged anti-terror operation kicked off Sunday morning in the al-Azim district in Diyala province.
He added that intelligence, artillery and explosive disposal units participated in the campaign, which came after a flagrant attack by Daesh terrorists on an army barracks killed 11 Iraqi soldiers in their sleep in Diyala on early on Friday. He emphasized that occasional attacks by Daesh terrorists against the Iraqi security forces only strengthen the resolve of the PMU forces to hunt the terrorists down and counter them everywhere.
Mousawi said the operation aims to tighten the grip on the Daesh terrorists still active on the eastern and western banks of al-Azim river, noting that the anti-terror forces would go ahead with the offensive despite the cold weather, rocky grounds and difficult conditions in meadows and wetlands.
Daesh attack against the PMU security forces would never break their determination to crush the terrorists, the commander added.
Hashd al-Sha’abi played a major role in reinforcing the Iraqi army, which had initially suffered heavy setbacks in the face of Daesh gains.