ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Iraqi Security Media Cell said Monday that they have tracked down three suspected Islamic State (ISIS) militants south of the disputed Kirkuk province through airstrikes. Their hideout was also targeted during the operation.
“Our units detected the movements of three … elements in the Kirkuk Operations Sector,” their statement read, noting that F-16 fighter jets were deployed to execute “painful and precisely targeted airstrikes directly against the located targets.”
The statement did not mention the explicit neutralization of the suspected ISIS militants.
Iraqi Security Media Cell stated that a “tunnel was identified” and “completely destroyed” during the operation.
Earlier on Monday, the Iraqi defense ministry announced a visit by Abdul Amid Rashid Yarallah, the country’s army chief of staff, to Kirkuk.
“The visit aims to inspect the overall security situation and the deployment of military units within the area of responsibility,” the statement added.
Monday’s airstrike took place exactly two months after Iraq’s air force targeted hideouts of the militant group in Salahaddin province that led to the “complete destruction of the designated targets.”
ISIS seized large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria in 2014 before its caliphate was dismantled in Iraq in 2017 after three years of intense fighting. Despite its territorial defeat, the group continues to pose a security threat, particularly in disputed areas between Erbil and Baghdad spanning the provinces of Diyala, Kirkuk, Nineveh and Salahaddin.
In early October, a group of “unidentified gunmen” attacked a Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) checkpoint in Hawija district, killing one and injuring three other members. The attack came weeks after another PMF member was killed and another was wounded in a similar attack in Kirkuk.
The attacks follow notable operations in recent months.
An Iraqi military officer was killed in July during clashes with ISIS in Kirkuk province, prompting increased airstrikes targeting the group’s hideouts using F-16 fighter jets, helicopters and Cessna Caravan aircraft.
Clashes came a day after Iraqi security forces carried out a series of air and ground operations in Kirkuk province to target hideouts and strongholds, killing a suspected ISIS member in an "ambush" in the town of Prde (Altun Kupri), 40 kilometers northwest of Kirkuk
