46 Daesh Terrorists Killed in Iraq’s Nineveh Province
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The Iraqi army backed by Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) managed to kill 46 terrorists in an airstrike against militants of the Daesh (ISIL or ISIS) terrorist group in the northern province of Nineveh, security forces said.
The Iraqi army said in a statement that in an airstrike backed by the PMU in Ba'aj and Qirvan districts in Nineveh Province, 46 terrorists were killed and dozens more wounded, the Arabic-language Alsumaria news agency reported.
During the operation west of Mosul, four vehicles of the Daesh militants, including two booby-trapped vehicles, were also destroyed.
In another development, the PMU forces managed to shoot down a drone of the Daesh in Hamrin Mountains in Diyala Province.
The Iraqi government forces have now retaken the eastern half of Mosul and some western parts of the city. On February 19, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the launch of a military assault aimed at taking western Mosul from Daesh.
Iraq has been facing the growing threat of terrorism, mainly posed by the ISIL terrorist group.
The ISIL militants made advances in northern and western Iraq over summer 2014, after capturing swaths of northern Syria.
However, a combination of concentrated attacks by the Iraqi military and the volunteer forces, who rushed to take arms after top Iraqi cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa calling for fight against the militants, blunted the edge of the ISIL offensive and in recent months led to liberation of much of the territories occupied by Daesh.
