Iraq air raids destroy Islamic State ‘operations room’ in Syria

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Iraqi airstrikes targeted Islamic State (IS) positions in neighboring Syria, destroying the extremist group’s “operations room,” the military said in a statement on Thursday.

“According to intelligence, those terrorists who were killed were planning criminal operations using suicide vests and intended to target innocents in the next few days inside Iraq,” the Iraqi military said.

The statement said F-16 fighter jets “carried out successful airstrikes on an IS operations room inside Syrian territory” where the militants were meeting.

Since 2017, the Iraqi army has conducted many strikes on IS positions inside Syria with approval from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the US-led coalition.

In June, air raids by Iraqi warplanes killed at least 45 IS members, including senior leaders, in the town of Hajin along the Syria-Iraq border

Despite Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s “final victory” announcement over the extremist group last December, IS continues to carry out sporadic ambushes, suicide attacks, bombings, and kidnappings in formerly liberated areas of Iraq.

A United Nations (UN) report circulated on Aug. 13 revealed that as many as 30,000 IS militants are still roaming areas in Iraq and Syria.

The report said the terrorists are “equally distributed between the two countries” where they are still actively engaged in violent acts “through sleeper cells,” while others are “hiding out in sympathetic communities and urban areas.”

The UN report noted that the supply of new foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria “has essentially come to a halt,” with member-states telling the UN monitors that IS resources are drying up.