Four Islamic State militants, including two top commanders, have been killed in an airstrike by Iraqi aircraft in the Hamrin Mountains of eastern Iraq, security officials confirmed on Saturday.
The Iraqi Security Media Cell, which is responsible for the release of official security updates, said that the bodies of the militants were found after Iraqi F-16 fighter jets conducted an airstrike on Friday.
Talib Al-Mousawi is an official within Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a coalition of armed factions was established in 2014 and later integrated into an official security force to combat the IS. It was reported by the Security Media Cell that, in Diyala province, there were two strong IS leaders who got eliminated in this strike. Investigation is continuing for the identification of the fourth militant.
At its height between 2014 and 2017, the IS “caliphate” exercised brutal control over vast swaths of Iraq and Syria, meting out death and torture to local communities and projecting its influence across the Middle East. The group’s dominance was broken in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria by 2019 after months of military pressure from a US led coalition.
Although the caliphate is destroyed, the remnants of IS have spread to independent cells. The leadership of the group is kept secret, and the total numbers are hard to estimate, according to UN sources, which set their strength in core territories at approximately 10,000 members.
