Iraqi Troops Retake 2 Towns from ISIL in Salahuddin

The Iraqi army along with volunteer forces continued to make more gains in their fight against the ISIL Takfiri group in Salahuddin province, and managed to liberate two areas from the control of the terrorists.

The Iraqi soldiers inflicted major losses on the ISIL in the Northern province of Salahuddin and succeeded in retaking the towns of al-Malha and al-Mazraah, located 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) South of the Beiji oil refinery.

General Ayad al-Lahabi, a commander with the Salahuddin Command Center, said, “Iraqi troops, backed by pro-government Popular Mobilization units, took back the towns of al-Malha and al-Mazraah on Friday.”

He added that at least 160 ISIL terrorists were killed during the operations.

Iraqi Parliament Speaker Ahmad al-Jabouri said earlier that in the military operations to liberate Tikrit, the security forces killed more than 130 ISIL terrorists.

“After liberating the Tikrit city center, we had to defuse the improvised explosive devices and the houses and governmental institutions’ booby-trapped bombs planted by the ISIL terrorists when they controlled the city,” he added.

Iraq has been the scene of insurgency since summer 2014 when the ISIL terrorists started massive attacks on cities, towns and the villages of Nineveh, Anbar and Salahuddin provinces, occupying Mosul and Tikrit.

Late in March, the Iraqi army, backed by the Shiite and Sunni volunteer forces, made a final push against the ISIL terrorists in Tikrit, and managed to fully liberate the Northern city from the control of the Takfiri group.

The hometown of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was expected to be fully liberated within hours after the army troops and popular fighters inflicted major losses on the ISIL terrorists in the Southern and Western parts of the city and broke the terrorist group’s fortified line of defense earlier in the day.

At the time, Iraqi Prime Minister Heidar Al-Abadi underlined that the Iraqi troops will try to regain control of Mosul and Al-Anbar in the next stage of their operations after Tikrit.