The Iraqi armed forces have obtained information that confirms the presence of senior leaders of the Islamic State terrorist group (IS, banned in Russia) in northern Iraq, where the country's army launched the second stage of an anti-IS operation earlier in the day, Iraqi Joint Operation Command spokesman Maj. Gen. Tahsin al-Khafaji told Sputnik on Tuesday
BAGHDAD (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd June, 2020) The Iraqi armed forces have obtained information that confirms the presence of senior leaders of the Islamic State terrorist group (IS, banned in Russia) in northern Iraq, where the country's army launched the second stage of an anti-IS operation earlier in the day, Iraqi Joint Operation Command spokesman Maj. Gen. Tahsin al-Khafaji told Sputnik on Tuesday.
On February 12, the Iraqi military announced the start of a new anti-IS operation dubbed "Iraq Heroes," or "Victory of Sovereignty," as part of the country's efforts to clear its territory of illegal terrorist formations. On Tuesday, Iraq's Commander-in-Chief spokesman, Yehia Rasool, said that the second phase of the operation has begun in northern Kirkuk and Salah ad-Din provinces.
"In the course of the military operation, the army forces have obtained terrorists' phones and got information which indicates the presence of several senior leaders of the terrorist group in the region. We will continue maintaining the pressure and pursuing them," al-Khafaji said.
According to al-Khafaji, two IS extremists were killed within the first hours of the offensive.
On Monday, Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces, an umbrella grouping of Shia armed militias also known as Hashd al-Shaabi, said that it had detained two senior IS members in the Iraqi northern province of Nineveh.
In mid-May, the Iraqi armed forces launched a fresh wide-scale anti-terrorist operation, dubbed "Lions of al-Jazeera." The operation is taking place throughout the territories of northwestern Iraq and northeastern Syria. On May 20, Iraq's National Intelligence Service detained Abdullah Qardash, one of the IS' senior leaders and a possible successor to Abu Bakr Baghdadi, who was killed in October. A spokesman of the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service (CTS), Sabal al-Nouman, told Sputnik that Qardash's arrest would help determine the group's funding resources and details on its further plans.
Following these developments, the CTS spokesman also told Sputnik that another IS terrorist, Mouataz al-Jabouri, the so-called Iraqi governor within the IS terrorist group system, had been killed in an airstrike launched by the US-led international coalition in Syria's Deir ez-Zor.
