ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - At least five suspected Islamic State (ISIS) militants were killed in an Iraqi airstrike on the Hamrin Mountains in Kirkuk province, the army announced on Saturday.
“After the heroic Air Falcons carried out precise airstrikes using F-16 aircraft… a joint force at dawn on Saturday began searching the site of the airstrikes, finding the bodies of five terrorists,” the army’s Joint Operations Command said in a statement.
“Weapons, ammunition, explosives, logistical materials, and communication devices” were also found at the site, the statement added.
The strike in territories disputed between the federal Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is the latest in an ongoing effort by Baghdad to rid the country of ISIS cells in areas where a security vacuum allows them to operate.
The jihadist group seized control of swathes of territory in northern and central Iraq in 2014. But their so-called caliphate was brought to an end in 2017 when Iraqi and Kurdish fighters, supported by a United States-led international coalition, clawed back territory.
Despite its territorial defeat, ISIS has continued to pose a security threat in Iraq through hit-and-run attacks, bombings, and abductions, particularly in the disputed territories that stretch across several provinces including Diyala, Salahaddin, Kirkuk, and Nineveh.
A day before the strike on Hamrin, the Iraqi air force hit six suspected ISIS hideouts in western Anbar province, which borders Syria.
In its latest report on anti-ISIS operations, the Pentagon said that ISIS is a bigger threat in Syria than it is in Iraq.
In Iraq, “ISIS displayed limited capabilities, conducting the lowest number of attacks observed since the onset of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq in 2003. The group also showed no significant improvement in attack sophistication,” said the report from October 29.
