Daesh commanders killed in Iraqi airstrike near Syria border

Several top commanders of the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group have been killed along with a number of other terrorists in an Iraqi aerial attack in the Western Province of Anbar, media reports say.

According to Press TV, in a statement released late on Monday, the Iraqi Joint Special Operations Command said Iraqi bombers hit their gathering in the town of Qaim.

Among those killed was a high-ranking intelligence director who was a close ally to the so-called leader of the terrorist group, Ibrahim al-Samarrai, aka Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, it said.

The unnamed intelligence director was reportedly responsible for orchestrating a string of terrorist attacks including a recent bomb attack in the strategic city of Hit.

He was an officer in Iraq’s defunct General Directorate of Intelligence under slain dictator Saddam Hussein. He had worked with terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi before pledging allegiance to Baghdadi.

Commander of the terrorists Tabuk Battalion operating inside both Syria and Iraq also died in the air raid.

Daesh press director in Baghdad and southern Iraqi regions, a fugitive from Camp Bucca prison in southern Iraq, sustained injuries in the attack, and succumbed to his grave wounds later on.

Separately, Kurdish Peshmerga forces have launched an operation against the Daesh terrorists in Kazir region, which lies northeast of the terrorist-held city of Mosul.

Arif Tayfour, a Spokesman for Peshmerga forces, said on Monday that his fellow fighters have killed 140 Daesh members over the past two days and purged more than 130 square kilometers of the area of the terrorists.

Tayfour added that four Peshmerga fighters lost their lives during the cleanup operation.

ME