UPDATED: Coalition airstrikes 38 IS militants in Anbar
US-led coalition aircraft. File photo.
Col. Walid al-Dailami, from the army’s Anbar Operations, said one of strikes targeted an IS location in al-Rabt, a region of the town of Qaem, near the Syrian borders, killing 33 at a training camp run by the group.
Meanwhile, Anbar’s top operations commander, Qassem al-Mohammadi, was quoted by AlMada Press as saying that five other militants were killed in coalition strikes at Wadi Muweil, west of the city of Ramadi. A booby-trapping workshop, a vehicle and a rocket launcher used by the group were also destroyed. he said.
IS has been holding Qaem, along with other few regions in western Anbar, since the group emerged in 2014 to proclaim a so-called “Islamic Caliphate”. Thousands of civilians are stranded under the group’s control and are barred from exiting.
The Iraqi army command in Anbar declared on the 5th of January the start of tribes-backed operations to retake IS remaining pockets in the province’s western regions. The operations lasted for a few days, recapturing a few villages, before halting again. Security sources said after the halt of operations that the government had decided to halt battles in Anbar until the end of operations in Mosul.
Iraqi and coalition fighter jets have, however, carried out regular strikes on Islamic State locations in the west. The group responded with stepping up several attacks in the past weeks that killed several security personnel.
On Sunday, Khalaf al-Jleibawi, a senior leader at al-Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Units), which fights IS with the government, said security forces had received confirmed information that several families of Islamic State militants had begun returning to the city of Ramadi, which security forces said they fully recaptured late 2015.