Iraqi forces kill ten ISIS members in Anbar and Nineveh

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Iraqi forces announced on Wednesday they had killed ten Islamic State members in separate operations targeting the militants in the country’s Nineveh and Anbar provinces.

Security and intelligence forces were able to “kill five suicide bombers wearing explosive belts,” the recently-established Security Media Cell said in a statement.

“This operation came after we ambushed… and surrounded [the ISIS members] in the vehicle they were traveling in. The vehicle caught fire, and the criminals were killed inside,” after Iraqi forces opened fire on the suspected jihadists, the statement claimed. The operation was carried out near the village of Badush, northwest of Mosul in Nineveh Province.

In a separate statement, this one from the Military Media Cell, Iraqi forces reportedly also managed to “kill five terrorists” and set ablaze their vehicle near the Husayniyah area in Wadi Houran, Western Anbar.

The two operations are the latest developments in the Iraqi forces and Iran-backed Hashd al-Shaabi’s campaign against Islamic State remnants and sleeper cells of the terrorist organization after a string of recent insurgent attacks in the rural areas of the two provinces.

In mid-February, Iraqi troops captured an Islamic State “spy” working for the militant group in the province of Anbar in western Iraq. Elsewhere, security arrested another Islamic State member inside the al-Jadah camp in the town of Qayyara, about 60 kilometers south of Mosul.

Although Iraq declared victory over the Islamic State in December 2017, the extremist group continues to launch regular attacks, including bombings, kidnappings, and ambushes against both security forces and civilians in areas liberated from its control as well as in major cities it never took over, such as Baghdad and Kirkuk.

Editing by Nadia Riva