Eurasia Press & News
Nine Islamic State militants were killed Tuesday during a counter-terrorism operation in Mosul city, a senior security official said.
“Intelligence forces, in coordination with the Nineveh Operations Command, killed nine IS terrorists hiding inside a tunnel in al-Sahaji village, southwest of Mosul,” Brig. Gen. Yahia Rasool, spokesman for the Joint Operations Command, said in a press statement.
The troops were backed by warplanes of the U.S.-led international coalition, the spokesman added.
Iraq declared the collapse of Islamic State’s territorial influence in November 2017 with the recapture of Rawa, a city on Anbar’s western borders with Syria, which was the group’s last bastion in Iraq.
IS declared a self-styled “caliphate” in a third of Iraq and neighboring Syria in 2014. A government campaign, backed by a U.S.-led international coalition and paramilitary forces, was launched in 2016 to retake IS-held regions, managing to retake all havens, most notably the city of Mosul, the group’s previously proclaimed capital.
