At least 300 members of Daesh have reportedly been killed in an airstrike by the Iraqi Air Force targeting the positions of the terrorist group in the western province of al-Anbar.
“Preliminary estimates indicated the number of dead to be more than 300 terrorists” in the airstrikes on the Daesh positions in the regions of Anah and Rawah, west of the province, a statement by Harakat Hizballah al-Nujaba, an Iraqi Shia movement fighting Daesh, said on Tuesday.
It was also said that the Iraqi army conducted “extensive air raids” against the “largest shelters of the Takfiri [militant] group between al- Rummaneh area and al-Bagoz district,” west of the provincial capital, Ramadi.
The statement also said, “The militants were coming from Syria to support the terrorists in Anbar.”
Faisal al-Esawi, a leader of the Albu Esa tribe in the Amiriyat al-Falluja district near Ramadi, also said that as many as 400 militants were killed in the Iraqi air raids on the regions of Anah and Rawah.
Since last week, the Iraqi army, backed by Popular Mobilization Forces, has been conducting operations southwest of the city of Samarra in an effort to retake Anbar’s provincial capital from Daesh.
Among the other aims of the operations are blocking the advance of Daesh members active in the Tharthar region, north of Fallujah, and preventing the militants from moving into the northwestern and northern areas of the capital, Baghdad, as well as the Diyala Province.
Al-Anbar Province, which is located in the western part of Iraq, is the major Daesh stronghold of the country. The group controls swathes of land in northern parts of Iraq as well as in eastern Syria.
Editor's note: This article has been edited from the source material
