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Iraq forces, Peshmerga kill 240 ISIL terrorists

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Soldiers of the Iraqi army have inflicted heavy losses on the ISIL Takfiri terrorists in separate clashes around the militant-held city of Mosul.

At least 60 militants were killed in one airstrike targeting a juvenile prison in Mosul, the provincial capital of Nineveh province, on Wednesday.

The prison was being used by the terrorists as a court to regularly issue beheading verdicts for those who dissent them.

Meanwhile, Iraq’s al-Sumaria TV station quoted Iraqi officials as saying that 180 ISIL terrorists were killed in the north of the city where the central government is carrying out airstrikes to support Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, who are also engaged in clashes with the terrorists there.

The figure would put ISIL’s fatalities of the day at 240. One senior ISIL commander and four of his deputies were reportedly among the dead.

“We have changed our tactics from being defensive to being offensive,” said Jabbar Yawar, secretary-general of the ministry in charge of the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters.

The crisis in Iraq escalated after the ISIL Takfiri militants took control of Mosul, in a lightning advance on June 10, which was followed by the fall of Tikrit, located 140 kilometers (87 miles) northwest of the capital Baghdad.

More than a million people have been displaced in Iraq so far this year, according to the United Nations.

The ISIL has vowed to continue its raid towards Baghdad. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has said that the country’s security forces would confront the terrorists, calling the seizure of Mosul a “conspiracy”.

Soldiers of the Iraqi army have been engaged in heavy fighting with the militants on different fronts and have so far been able to push back militants in several areas.

Maliki has said Saudi Arabia and Qatar are responsible for the security crisis and growing terrorism in his country, denouncing the Al Saud regime as a major supporter of global terrorism.

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