Iraqi Military, PMU Kill 6 Daesh Militants in Separate Operations

According to a statement from Iraq’s Joint Operations Command's media office, the country’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) also known as Hashd al-Shaabi forces carried out an operation in the Albu-Saif neighborhood south of Mosul, the northern province of Nineveh's capital, acting on intelligence reports.

During this operation, four Daesh militants were killed.

According to the statement, the Hashd al-Shaabi forces, which are supported by the government, encircled the suburb as they were looking for any additional Daesh members who might be hiding there.

A second operation south of the province's namesake capital city of Kirkuk resulted in the death of a Daesh suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt and the injury of another by a combined force of the Iraqi government army and the Hashd al-Shaabi, a source from the Kirkuk Operations Command told Xinhua.

Daesh militants had attacked shepherds near a village south of the Kirkuk city, killing one of them and wounding two others before fleeing the scene, the source said on condition of anonymity.

In a third operation launched to hunt down the terrorists in the western province of Anbar, the Iraqi army and the Hashd al-Shaabi units killed a Daesh militant in a desert area near the town of Rawa, some 320 km northwest of the capital Baghdad, the Hashd al-Shaabi said in a statement.

Weapons and ammunition caches were found in the militant’s hideouts deep into the desert, according to the statement.

Over the past months, Iraqi security forces have conducted operations against terrorists to crack down on their intensified activities.

The security situation in Iraq has been improving since the defeat of Daesh in 2017.

However, its remnants have since melted into urban centers, deserts, and rugged areas, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians.