Iraq's PMF Militia Destroy IS Headquarters With Military Support in Eastern Anbar Region

BAGHDAD (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th January, 2021) Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) said on Thursday that its militia forces destroyed a headquarters for the Islamic State terror group (IS, banned in Russia) in the eastern Anbar governorate.

PMF commander Qasem Mosleh said the operation in Anbar's desert regions was carried out with the Iraqi military's air support.

"As a result of a security operation, launched according to accurate intelligence information regarding a number of targets in western Anbar province, in coordination with joint operations and the Iraqi army's aviation, a new IS headquarters in the western Anbar desert in the difficult geographic area of Wadi Al-Malasi was destroyed," Mosleh was quoted as saying.

Two people were arrested in the course of the operation and a cache of weapons was confiscated in addition to telephones, a laptop and a pickup truck, PMF said, publishing corresponding photographs.

Seven newly built IS structures were also destroyed in the operation.

Islamic State was declared destroyed in 2017 but operations against remaining elements and sleeper cells remain underway by the Iraqi army and Shia militias.

After IS' 2014 capture of large swathes of Iraqi territory, many civilians from the country's Shia majority joined makeshift militias to counter the terror group's threat. Many of these militias remain active and have coalesced under the umbrella of the PMF. With heavy support from Iran, these militia forces constitute a separate quasi-state security force.