Iraqi forces free al-Anbar region from ISIL

EghtesadOnline: Iraqi security forces have liberated a strategic region in the western al-Anbar Province from the ISIL terrorist group.

News ID: ۷۳۵۴۹۵

02 August 2016

According to ISNA, Major General Ismail al-Mahlawi, in charge of al-Anbar Operations Command, told al-Sumaria on Sunday that security personnel had fully regained control over the Khalidiya Island river peninsula, which lies nearly 90 kilometers (55 miles) west of the capital, Baghdad.

He said dozens of terrorists were killed in the operation.

He added that bomb disposal experts were now busy defusing improvised explosive devices and clearing booby-trapped houses in the area.

Commander of Federal Police Forces, Lieutenant General Raed Shaker Jawdat, separately said that Iraqi security forces had killed nearly 200 ISIL terrorists and disarmed 250 bombs in the operation to free the Khalidiya Island.

Meanwhile, a high-ranking ISIL figure in Iraq, who was the self-proclaimed governor of northern Baghdad, has been killed alongside a large number of his aides in a US-led coalition airstrike.

Iraq’s Joint Operations Command said the terrorists were meeting on the outskirts of the Iraqi capital when US-led forces, acting on information provided by Iraqi counter-terrorism and intelligence units, carried out a precision strike against them.

The northern and western parts of Iraq have been plagued by gruesome violence ever since the Takfiri militants launched a campaign of terror in June 2014.

Iraqi government forces, backed by fighters from allied Popular Mobilization units, have been fighting the militants.