Iraqi forces continue war against ISIS…
Five “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” (ISIS) elements were killed in two airstrikes in Diyala province, the Joint Operations Command said.
“Five ISIS elements were killed in two Iraqi airstrikes targeting the caves of those gangs in Narin sector, Diyala province, and destroyed several gutters,” the command said in a statement carried by the official Iraqi News Agency (INA).
In a related context, the Iraqi Shafaq News Agency quoted a security source in the Iraqi province of Salah Al-Din as saying: The warplanes launched intensive airstrikes targeting ISIS hideouts in the Makhoul Mountains, which extend to two provinces, Salah al-Din and Ninewa. They represent an extension of the Hamrin Chain and strategically affect the provinces of Salah al-Din, Kirkuk and Diyala.
Iraqi authorities have previously announced the number of ISIS remnants and their whereabouts on Iraqi soil.
In previous statements to Reuters, a senior Iraqi military official confirmed that ISIS maintains about 400 to 500 fighters in Iraq, and a UN Security Council report estimated last February that the group had “between 5,000 and 7,000 members and supporters spread between Iraq” and Syria, “about half of them combatants”.
In Iraq, ISIS activities have been concentrated at “a logistics theater in Anbar (west), Nineveh and Mosul (north), and an “operations theater” including Kirkuk (north), Diyala (northeast), Salaheddin (north) and north Baghdad,” it said.
