The commando forces of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) carried out an operation in Nineveh Province and killed 42 militants of the extremist Islamic State (IS) group, the Iraqi military said Sunday.
Acting on intelligence reports, the CTS forces backed by Iraqi and international coalition aircraft, pushed into Ayn al-Jahash area in the south of Nineveh’s provincial capital Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, and fought fierce clashes with IS militants in the area for two successive days, Yahia Rasoul, spokesman of the Commander-in-Chief of the Iraqi forces, said in a statement.
The troops forced the IS militants to withdraw and hole up in their hideouts in tunnels and caves, prompting the CTS troops to storm their hideouts even with hand grenades, he added.
The operation resulted in the killing of 42 IS militants, including five of their local leaders, and the seizure of weapons and ammunition inside the hideouts, according to Rasoul.
The operation came as the extremist IS militants have intensified their attacks on the security forces and civilians in the formerly IS-controlled Sunni provinces, resulting in the killing and wounding of dozens.
The security situation in Iraq has been improving since the Iraqi security forces fully defeated the IS militants across the country late in 2017.
However, IS remnants have since melted in urban areas or deserts and rugged areas, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians.
