Security forces kill 8 ISIS militants in Ramadi, defuse IEDs in Baqubah

(IraqiNews.com) Anbar – Eight militants from the self-proclaimed Islamic State extremist group were killed in an air bombing by US-led international coalition, west of Ramadi, Iraqi army forces announced on Wednesday.

Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Mohammadi said in a press statement, “International coalition aircraft bombed a gathering of ISIS terrorists north of Hadithah, west of Ramadi.”

In Baqubah, a local official said that army forces defused seven IEDs planted inside a school at a liberated village, northeast of the city.

Adnan Al-Tamimi, Head of Maqdadiah municipality, said, “A force from the army’s fifth brigade ran into the bombs while combing the village of Kahilaniyah (13Km north of Maqdadiah).”

“A specialized unit dismantled the IEDs with no losses,” he said. ” The discovery supports our earlier warnings that ISIS could use the village’s emptiness of citizens to turn it into a hotspot,” he explained.

Khailainiyah is among the largest villages north of Maqdadiah that had been cleared from ISIS fighters who occupied it in June 2014. Its citizens, however, have not yet returned home.

Eyes are currently on Mosul, Islamic State’s last stronghold in Iraq, for which US-led foreign forces, Iraqi security and allied Shia militias are carrying out a major liberation campaign.