Coalition airstrikes leaves militants killed, north of Baghdad: Military
Airstrike by the US-led international coalition aircraft.
In a statement, the Defense Ministry’s War Media Cell said, “the Coalition jets carried out airstrikes that destroyed a hideout and two supply routes of Islamic State in the desert of Anbar and al-Jazirah region.”
“The jets also killed a group of civilians near al-Taji region,” it added.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi said during his weekly press in November that his country has defeated Islamic State over the military level, but will declare final victory after desert areas are purged of militants.
Iraqi forces, backed by a U.S.-led coalition and paramilitary troops, have been fighting since October 2016 to retake territories Islamic State had occupied. Since then, forces took back the group’s former capital, Mosul, the town of Tal Afar, Kirkuk’s Hawija, and Anbar’s Annah, Rawa and Qaim.
Violence in the country has surged further with the emergence of Islamic State Sunni extremist militants who proclaimed an “Islamic Caliphate” in Iraq and Syria in 2014.
The war against IS has displaced nearly five million people, with tens of thousands of civilians and militants killed since the launch of the offensives to recapture occupied cities.