ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A number of suspected Islamic State (ISIS) militants were killed on Saturday when Iraqi warplanes carried out an airstrike on their location in Salahaddin province, the army said.
The air force “carried out a successful airstrike using F16 aircraft targeting a guesthouse in the Palkana Mountains in the Eastern Salahaddin Operations Command sector, which led to its complete destruction and the killing of the terrorist elements inside,” Iraq’s Security Media Cell said in a statement.
The exact death toll, however, was not readily made available.
Iraqi warplanes frequently carry out strikes on the Palkana mountains – an area where ISIS sleeper cells are present.
In late June, at least seven ISIS members were killed in two separate airstrikes in the Palkana mountains.
ISIS seized control of swathes of Iraqi territory during a brazen offensive in 2014, sweeping through vast stretches of northern and central Iraq.
But the jihadists’ so-called “caliphate” would come to an end in 2017 as Iraqi and Kurdish fighters, supported by a US-led international coalition, clawed back territory from the group.
Despite its territorial defeat, ISIS has continued to pose security threats in the country through hit-and-run attacks, bombings, and abductions in several provinces, particularly in areas disputed between the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which stretch across several provinces including Diyala, Salahaddin, Nineveh, and Kirkuk.
Iraq’s air force regularly pursues and targets ISIS hideouts across the country, particularly in the disputed areas.
In late August, a joint operation by the Iraqi army and US forces in the western Anbar province killed 16 ISIS militants, and the US army on Saturday said that the operation killed four ISIS leaders.
Earlier this month, an Iraqi airstrike in the Hamrin mountain range in Diyala killed three ISIS militants.
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