ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Coalition warplanes and Peshmerga forces have destroyed heavy-weapons depots of the Islamic State (ISIS) on the western Dijla front, inflicting a heavy blow on the group’s ability to engage in heavy clashes, a Kurdish official said Wednesday.
“On Tuesday, at around 5:50, the US-led coalition warplanes and the Peshmerga destroyed ISIS military bases as well as weapons depots containing heavy weapons in the village of Ashqi close to the Kaske two-sided road on the western Dijla front,” said Brig. Dilshad Maulood, media officer of the Zeravani Peshmerga command.
He told Rudaw that heavy weapons storage facilities were targeted, undercutting the group’s fighting capacity. He claimed that was a “major blow” to the militants.
The key western Dijla front is located west of Mosul, where Peshmerga and coalition warplanes have been targeting ISIS movements and positions. The attacks are part of plans to weaken the militants ahead of an anticipated massive assault to free the city, which ISIS seized in June last year.
Meanwhile, the US military said Tuesday that coalition forces have carried out 20 airstrikes, bombing 10 ISIS-held cities and towns in Iraq and an equal number in Syria.
A bomb-making facility run by the group was destroyed in airstrikes on Monday on the Makhmour front and the militants were attacked in the nearby village of Kodila Shian, where ISIS casualties were still unknown, according to Peshmerga spokesman Col. Mala Mahdi.
The destruction of the bomb facility followed an ISIS missile attack on Makhmour last week, in which a 20-year-old woman was reportedly killed and two other women were badly wounded.
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