Iraq: Daesh commanders killed in airstrike near Iraqi-Syrian border

Published May 31st, 2016 - 09:00 GMT
Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters fire an anti-tank cannon on the front line near Hasan Sham village, some 45 kilometers (27 miles) east of Mosul, during an operation aimed at retaking areas from Daesh on May 29, 2016. (AFP/File)
Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters fire an anti-tank cannon on the front line near Hasan Sham village, some 45 kilometers (27 miles) east of Mosul, during an operation aimed at retaking areas from Daesh on May 29, 2016. (AFP/File)

In a statement released late on Monday, the Iraqi Joint Special Operations Command said Iraqi bombers hit their gathering in the town of Qaim.

Among those killed was a high-ranking intelligence director who was a close ally to the so-called leader of the militant group, Ibrahim al-Samarrai, aka Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, it said.

The unnamed intelligence director was reportedly responsible for orchestrating a string of extremist attacks including a recent bomb attack in the strategic city of Hit.

He was an officer in Iraq's defunct General Directorate of Intelligence under slain dictator Saddam Hussein. He had worked with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi before pledging allegiance to Baghdadi.

Commander of the militants Tabuk Battalion operating inside both Syria and Iraq also died in the air raid.

Daesh press director in Baghdad and southern Iraqi regions, a fugitive from Camp Bucca prison in southern Iraq, sustained injuries in the attack, and succumbed to his grave wounds later on.

Peshmerga forces kill Daesh fighters near Mosul

Separately, Kurdish Peshmerga forces have launched an operation against the Daesh militants in Kazir region, which lies northeast of the militant-held city of Mosul.

Arif Tayfour, a spokesman for Peshmerga forces, said on Monday that his fellow fighters have killed 140 Daesh members over the past two days and purged more than 130 square kilometers of the area of the extremists.

Tayfour added that four Peshmerga fighters lost their lives during the cleanup operation.

Daesh abducts 100 Iraqi youths for not growing beard

Moreover, Daesh extremists have abducted 100 young residents of Fallujah, located roughly 69 kilometers (43 miles) west of Baghdad, on trumped-up charges of not growing beard and refusal to join the ranks of the militant outfit in battles against government forces and allied Popular Mobilization Units fighters.

Majid al-Jarisi, a tribal elder from Fallujah, told Arabic-language al-Sumaria satellite television network that the militants took away the youths to an unknown location and there is no information about their whereabouts.

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