International coalition kills eight Islamic State militants in Anbar province
A Shi’ite volunteer wearing a mask, who has joined the Iraqi army to fight against the predominantly Sunni militants from the radical Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), looks on during a parade on a street in Kanaan, Diyala province, June 26, 2014.
Anbar (IraqiNews.com) – Eight Islamic State militants were killed Monday in an airstrike that was launched by the U.S.-led international coalition on a desert area in the Iraqi province of Anbar.
“Acting on accurate intelligence reports, the Joint Operations Command, backed by warplanes of the U.S.-led international coalition, targeted a gathering of Islamic State militants in the desert of Kabisa in the Hīt district of Anbar,” Al-Madar News quoted the Security Media Center as saying in a statement.
“The airstrike left eight IS militants dead,” the statement read, adding that an armored vehicle for the militant group was also destroyed in the operation.
Iraq declared the collapse of Islamic State’s territorial influence in November 2017 with the recapture of Rawa, a city on Anbar’s western borders with Syria, which was the group’s last bastion in Iraq.
IS declared a self-styled “caliphate” in a third of Iraq and neighboring Syria in 2014. A government campaign, backed by a U.S.-led international coalition and paramilitary forces, was launched in 2016 to retake IS-held regions, managing to retake all havens, most notably the city of Mosul, the group’s previously proclaimed capital.