UPDATED: 10 Islamic State members killed in Mosul security operation
Islamic State militants. File photo
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) – Ten terrorists of Islamic State were killed Saturday in a security operation in southern Mosul, the Security Media Center announced.
“Swat forces, backed by U.S.-led international coalition warplanes, carried out a preemptive security operation in al-Shoura district in southern Mosul, targeting a seven-kilometer-long cave used as a hiding place by IS militants,” the center was quoted by Mawzain News as saying in a statement.
“According to intelligence reports, 10 IS militants were killed in the security operation, which was launched to dry up the resources of terrorism,” added the center.
Earlier in the day, five Islamic State terrorists were arrested in the eastern side of Mosul.
Violence in the country has surged further with the emergence of Islamic State extremist militants who proclaimed an “Islamic Caliphate” in Iraq and Syria in 2014.
The surge in violence between armed groups and government forces has resulted in over five million internally displaced persons across Iraq and left more than 11 million in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
A total of 79 Iraqi civilians were killed and another 99 injured in acts of terrorism, violence and armed conflict in Iraq in July 2018, according to casualty figures recorded by the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI).