Iraq’s air force “carried out an airstrike using F-16 fighter jets targeting the two hideouts, killing the ISIS terrorist gang members inside, and destroying equipment, logistical materials, and communication devices,” the army’s Security Media Cell said in a statement.
The statement did not disclose the exact number of casualties.
Iraq carries out frequent airstrikes on suspected ISIS hideouts to pursue remnants of the group, particularly within areas of Diyala, Salahaddin, Kirkuk, and Nineveh provinces that are disputed between Erbil and Baghdad and a security vacuum exists, as well as in the Anbar desert that borders Syria. Iraqi forces and the Kurdish Peshmerga are coordinating to combat the group in the disputed areas.
Another Iraqi airstrike in mid-March in the Anbar desert killed Abdullah Makki Muslih al-Rafiei, ISIS’s second-in-command globally and its top man in Iraq and Syria.
In late February, the head of Iraq’s Security Media Cell told Rudaw that Iraqi security forces have largely eradicated ISIS from the country, with only a few hundred militants remaining in remote areas. The group was declared territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017, three years after it seized control of swathes of territory in the north and centre of the country.
