Several ISIL Leaders Killed in Iraqi Army's Airstrikes


TEHRAN (Tasnim) – More than 30 terrorists from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), including a number of the group's senior figures, were killed during Thursday airstrikes by Iraqi Army in the western province of Anbar, local media said.

In an airstrike on a training center of the ISIL terrorists with different nationalities in the town of Heet in Anbar Province, more than 30 militants, including several senior figures, were killed, according to Iraq's Alforat news agency.

In another military operation by the Iraqi forces backed by Popular Mobilization Forces in Fallujah, Anbar province, 69 kilometers west of Baghdad, three ISIL vehicles and a military depot were demolished.

During the clashes in Salahuddin province, five terrorists were also killed and an ammunition depot in Baiji district was destroyed.  

Earlier on Sunday, Iraq said its forces surrounded ISIL in Fallujah and Anbar's provincial capital, Ramadi, where they had opened a corridor for civilians to flee before a planned assault begins.

Iraq has been facing the growing threat of terrorism, mainly posed by the ISIL terrorist group.

The ISIL militants made swift advances in much of northern and western Iraq over the last summer, after capturing large swaths of northern Syria.

However, a combination of concentrated attacks by the Iraqi military and the volunteer forces, who rushed to take arms after top Iraqi cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa calling for fight against the militants, have blunted the edge of the ISIL offensive.