UPDATED: 100 Islamic State militants killed in Anbar airstrikes

Rawa (IraqiNews.com) The Iraqi Joint Operations Command said Tuesday its fighter jets killed 100 Islamic State members in strikes that targeted western Anbar havens.

The command said the strikes targeted the group’s western Anbar strongholds of Qaim and Annah, destroying booby-trapping workshops and drone airstrips belonging to the group. It added that the group targeted used to supply weapons to cells carrying out attacks in Baghdad.

Meanwhile, Hussein Ali, mayor of Rawa, was quoted by Alsumaria News Tuesday saying that there are more than 250 families nesieged by Daesh (Islamic State) in the town (230 Km west of Ramadi).

According to Ali, most of Rawa residents had fled the town to the city of Ramadi and more secure areas.

“The families at the town of Rawa have been dyin of hunger, and the group is encircling it and preventing them from leaving town,” Ali added, urging faster efforts to retake the city.

IS held Rawa, Qaim and Annah, all in western Anbar, since the group emerged in 2014 to proclaim a self-styled “Islamic Caliphate”. Iraqi and U.S.-led coalition jets have regularly pounded militants locations at those towns. The Iraqi government plans a military operation to liberate those regions once it finishes its almost seven-month-old campaign to retake the city of Mosul, Islamic State’s largest stronghold in Iraq.

The campaign against IS in Mosul has so far displaced more than half a million civilians, and the Iraqi government says more than four million had been displaced since IS took over Iraqi regions in 2014.