Iraqi Fighter Jets Kill Dozens Daesh Terrorists Near Syria Border

Date: 22 October 2017 - 21:46

News ID: ۴۵۵۷۹

BAGHDAD (Dispatches) – More than two dozen members of Daesh terrorist group have been killed when Iraqi Air Force fighter jets bombarded their positions in the country’s troubled western province of Anbar near the border with Syria.
The media bureau of the Iraqi Defense Ministry announced in a statement on Sunday that 25 Daesh terrorists were killed as Iraqi military aircraft launched precision strikes in the desert region of the province, English-language online newspaper Iraqi News reported.
The statement added that 13 vehicles used by the terrorists were also destroyed in the aerial assaults.
On October 10, 17 Daesh terrorists were killed as Iraqi warplanes pounded a terrorist convoy travelling along a road linking the small town of Akashat to the town of al-Qa'im, located nearly 400 kilometers northwest of the capital Baghdad.
Brigadier General Saleh Ali said at the time that the airstrikes also destroyed a number of Daesh arms depots and vehicles in the surrounding areas.
In another development in Iraq, parliament has called for a halt to transfer of arms to Peshmerga by foreign countries after reports that the Kurdish militants had used German weapons to attack government forces in Kirkuk.
Iraqi al-Hadath TV said Sunday that the legislature’s National Security and Defense Committee had sent an advisory to the country's defense ministry, calling for measures to stop such shipments.
"The aim of stopping supply of arms to Peshmerga forces is to halt the weapons from being used against the Iraqi armed forces,” Hakem al-Zameli, the head of the committee, said as he asked  countries to halt their arms sales to the fighters.
The call came after an Iraqi military statement said Kurdish militants were increasingly using U.S. and German weapons against the army which overtook the control of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk last week.
The statement said German rockets supplied to Peshmerga were used in Altun Kupri and Qush Tapa, causing casualties among government troops.
The clashes are getting fiercer as government forces are closing in on Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.
Baghdad launched the military operation after Kurdish militants did not heed a government ultimatum to withdraw from Kirkuk.
The offensive to recapture Kirkuk came after the northern Iraqi Kurdistan Region held a controversial referendum on secession on September 25 despite international opposition.
Germany and several other Western countries have been training Kurdish militants and supplying them with weapons for years.
Berlin’s packages have included Milan anti-tank missile launchers with rockets, plus Panzerfaust anti-tank missile systems.
Zameli on Sunday said a decision has to be made soon about the fate of some Peshmerga-linked outfits.
Among the Peshmerga dispatched to Kirkuk, there were fighters from the ranks of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by the European Union and the U.S., has been fighting for an independent state in neighboring Turkey where tens of thousands of people have been killed in clashes.