The Iraqi military announced Thursday that they had launched airstrikes on Daesh in Syrian territory amid Damascus’ efforts to eliminate the last pockets of the terrorist group.
“Fulfilling the orders of the commander-in-chief of the [Iraqi] Armed Forces … Iraqi F-16 jets successfully carried out an airstrike on the Syrian territory,” the statement said, as quoted by the Al-Sumaria broadcaster.
As the Iraqi military reported Thursday, the country’s jets destroyed a Daesh “operations room” in Syria, killing several fighters.
“According to intelligence, those terrorists who were killed were planning criminal operations using suicide vests and intended to target innocents in the next few days inside Iraq,” the military said in a statement.
According to a recently released UN report, approximately 30,000 Daesh members are operating in Iraq and Syria despite having lost the overwhelming majority of the territory they occupied over the past few years. A lot of them are believed to be in hiding or keeping an otherwise low profile.