Iraqi airstrikes kill 3 senior Daesh commanders in Mosul

Iraq’s military says three high-ranking commanders of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group have been killed in airstrikes conducted by army’s warplanes in the northern city of Mosul.

The Iraqi Joint Operations Command announced in a statement on Friday that the airstrikes also killed at least 11 terrorists who accompanied the commanders and destroyed two of their vehicles, Arabic-language al-Sumaria news website reported.

The statement also advised people in Daesh-held Mosul to keep safe distance from the group’s headquarters lest they fall victim to the air raids.

Mosul, the capital of the Northern Province of Nineveh, fell into the hands of Daesh in June 2014 in the first stage of the terrorists' advance through Iraq, and has since served as the group’s de facto capital in the country. Iraq’s central government has announced that the army will launch a full-scale military campaign to retake the city after uprooting the group in Fallujah in the western province of Anbar.

According to Iraqi Federal Police Forces Commander Lieutenant General Raed Shaker Jawdat, the security forces have so far managed to evacuate 760 people, mostly women and children, from the northern outskirts of the embattled city of Fallujah and moved them to a safe locality away from the battlefield.

ME