Friday, March 29, 2024

Baghdad

Airstrike kills 7 Islamic State members escaping Anbar to Syria

 Airstrike kills 7 Islamic State members escaping Anbar to Syria

IS militant’s dead body.

IS militant’s dead body.

Qaim (IraqiNews.com) Seven Islamic State militants were killed in an airstrike while escaping their havens in Anbar towards the Syrian borders on Friday.

Alsumaria News quoted a military source saying that the militants were killed fleeing the group’s stronghold city of Qaim towards the Syrian borders. He said several combat equipments belonging to the fighters were aso destroyed.

Islamic State militants have held the towns of Anah, Rawa and Qaim, west of Anbar, since 2014, when they occupied a third of Iraq to proclaim their self-styled “caliphate”. So far, there has not been a wide-scale campaign to retake those regions, but occasional offensives by government forces and allied Popular Mobilization Forces have managed to take over several surrounding villages.

The Iraqi government declared victory over Islamic State in Mosul, the group’s former capital in Iraq, in July, and said it was going to proceed towards other group holdouts, including Anbar.

Also late July, Iraqi army warplanes reportedly dropped millions of messages on western Anbar telling locals that liberation offensives for the province were nearing, and advising them to stay away from militants’ deployments.

Anbar’s borders with Syria had seen occasional encounters between security forces and Islamic State militants.

 

 

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