F-16 jets struck “important hideouts” of ISIS in a Diyala village on Saturday after the terror group tried to “destabilize security and create strife” in the province, Yehia Rasool, military spokesperson to Iraq’s prime minister, told state media.
“A security force went out this morning to search the targeted place and found four bodies of ISIS terrorist gang members and destroyed weapons and equipment … among the dead was the so-called criminal soldier Majeed Mayouf, who is considered one of the most prominent ISIS leaders,” Rasool said.
In December, a deadly ISIS attack in Diyala’s Muqdadiya district (known as Sharaban in Kurdish) left at least 10 civilians dead and 17 injured.
ISIS seized control of swathes of Iraqi territory during a brazen offensive in 2014 but it was declared territorially defeated in 2017 when its so-called caliphate in the country fell as Iraqi and Kurdish fighters, supported by a US-led international coalition, claimed back lands lost to the jihadists.
Despite its territorial defeat, the group has continued to pose a serious security threat to the country through hit-and-run attacks, bombings, and abductions in several provinces, particularly areas disputed between the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which stretch across several provinces including Diyala, Salahaddin, Kirkuk, and Nineveh.
