Iraq’s PMU forces kill Daesh top leader in Diyala, thwart infiltration in Anbar

Iraq’s pro-government Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), known in Arabic as Hashd al-Sha’abi, says its anti-terror fighters have killed a top leader of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in eastern province of Diyala.

In an interview with Arabic-language Almaalomah news agency on Sunday, Sadiq al-Hosseini, a senior official of Hashd al-Sha’abi said that the Daesh senior leader was killed in Haoz al-Waqf area, northeast of Diyala.

He said that precise intelligence collected or received by the PMU led to the killing of the terror leader in the area, which is some 25 kilometers northeast of Baqubah, the provincial capital, stressing that with his killing, Daesh suffered yet another blow from the Iraqi forces.

Yilmaz al-Najjar, the PMU’s commander in northern Iraq, said that Hashd al-Sha’abi fighters managed to arrest three Daesh commanders in the north-central Kirkuk province, after gathering precise intelligence.

The PMU has recently focused on detection and destruction of Daesh slipper cells in the Arab country.

PMU thwarts Daesh raid in Anbar

Also on Sunday, Hashd al-Sha’abi announced in a statement that its 26th brigade had managed to foil a terrorist plot by Daesh to target al-Nakhib area in the western province of Anbar.

The statement, carried by Arabic-language al-Mawazin news agency, said that after collecting precise intelligence, a tactical team from the 26th brigade was sent 25 kilometers deep into the Anbar desert, where they discovered and seized some ready-to-be-used rocket-launchers plus six rockets as well as a motorbike.

It further noted that the launchers had been fixed to hit al-Nakhib area in the western province, through which Daesh terrorists entered Iraq in mid-2014, adding that terrorists had fled the area before the arrival of the PMU forces.