ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) announced on Thursday that they had located and disrupted an Islamic State (ISIS) fuel supply network in western Anbar province.
“In a qualitative security operation, the Anbar Operations Command in the Popular Mobilization Forces located fuel supply outlets for the terrorist ISIS in the western Anbar desert,” read a statement from the PMF.
The discovery was made through a targeted operation relying on intelligence gathering and field monitoring, and led to the disruption of key supply lines used by ISIS to move and carry out attacks, said Qasim Muslih, commander of Anbar operations, according to the statement.
The Iraqi forces seized 15,000 liters of fuel, along with pumps, tanks, and barrels, and located a fuel station used by ISIS in the al-Ka'ara area, deep in the western desert.
Muslih said the operation marked an important step in weakening ISIS and that intelligence and field efforts will continue to pursue the remaining ISIS militants and cut off their sources of support.
Iraqi security forces have largely eradicated ISIS from the country, with only a few hundred militants believed to be operating in isolated regions, the head of the military’s Security Media Cell told Rudaw in February.
Anbar’s desert regions along the border with Syria is one of the hotspots of jihadist activity.
ISIS seized control of swathes of territory in 2014, declaring a so-called caliphate in vast stretches of northern and central Iraq as well as across the border in Syria. The jihadists’ rule in Iraq was brought to an end in 2017 when Iraqi and Kurdish fighters, supported by a United States-led international coalition, clawed back territory.
