Airstrikes kill IS militants, destroy havens west of Anbar
Iraqi army in Anbar
In a statement on Monday, the cell said, “several airstrikes were carried out in Qaim district. One of these strikes destroyed one of the havens, where IS militants hold meetings inside.”
“Another strike targeted another haven,” it said adding that “several members who were inside the two havens were killed.”
Anbar’s western towns of Annah, Rawa and Qaem have been under Islamic State control since the group’s emergence in 2014. Thousands of civilians are said to be held as potential human shields, according to local officials.
Fighter jets from Iraqi and the allied U.S.-led coalition have occasionally pounded the extremist group’s locations in the province. There has not been an officially-declared military campaign to free those regions, but the province’s military command launched a brief assault early January that managed to recapture some western villages before stopping again.
It is believed that the Iraqi government will not aim at western Anbar before its forces are done with retaking Mosul, Islamic State’s biggest bastion in Iraq where security forces have been battling the group since mid October.