Warplanes kill dozens of IS militants west of Anbar
Annah, Rawa (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi army warplanes killed dozens of Islamic State militants and destroyed combat equipment west of Anbar on Monday, military media reported.
Quoting the Iraqi intelligence service, the Defense Ministry’s War Media Cell said in a statement that army jets pounded three booby-trapping factories and three weaponry depositories, killing dozens of IS militants in the town of Rawa, west of Anbar.
Thirteen other militants were killed in airstrikes that targeted three weaponry reservoirs in Annah, according to the statement.
Anbar’s western towns of Annah, Qaim and Rawa have been held by the extremist group since 2014, when it emerged to proclaim a self-styled Islamic “Caliphate”. The border area between Anbar and Syria has seen occasional bloody attacks against security forces over the past months, but Iraqi paramilitary forces continue advances to impose control over that region.
Fighter jets from the Iraqi army and the U.S.-led international coalition have also regularly pounded IS locations in the province.
With the Iraqi government’s campaign to drive IS out of Mosul, its largest bastion in Iraq, is expected that government troops will aim at those strongholds as well as other pockets across Iraq.