Iraqi airstrike kills four suspected ISIS members in Salahaddin

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - At least four suspected Islamic State (ISIS) members, including a senior leader, were killed in an Iraqi airstrike on Sunday, the army said, as Baghdad continues to pursue jihadist remnants across the country.

“The Air Falcons carried out a painful strike on a detachment using F-16 aircraft, killing 4 terrorists, including the so-called commander of the Salahaddin sector named al-Bazi,” the army’s Security Media Cell said in a statement.

The strike also destroyed “weapons, ammunition, explosive belts, communications devices, and various logistic materials,” according to the statement.

It is the latest strike in territories disputed between the federal Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) as efforts to rid the country of ISIS cells continue, in areas where a security vacuum allows them to operate.

ISIS seized control of vast swathes of Iraqi territory in 2014, sweeping across vast stretches of northern and central Iraq.

But the jihadists’ so-called “caliphate” was brought 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 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.

Last week, another Iraqi airstrike in Salahaddin’s al-Aith killed at least six ISIS members.

On Friday, the US said that a prior Iraqi airstrike in Kirkuk killed the leader of ISIS in the province.

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 military later said that the operation killed four ISIS leaders.