The three militants were killed by an Iraqi Air Force strike on a vehicle, according to a Cell statement on Monday.
Another vehicle used to transport militants was found in a Nineveh valley, as well as ISIS hideouts laden with improvised explosive devices (IEDs), added the statement.
Iraqi security forces launched Operation Will of Victory, backed by international coalition airpower, to target Islamic State (ISIS) sleeper cells in Mosul, Anbar, and Saladin provinces, military officials announced on Sunday.
Media adviser to the Ministry of Interior Staff General Mohammed al-Askari said that the operation was initiated after an increase in ISIS activity and the interception of messages from ISIS leadership in Syria telling cells to regroup in Western areas of Iraq, particularly Anbar.
“These operations will not end until they reach the last frontiers of Iraq,” al-Askari said when speaking to media on Monday.
While ISIS were territorially defeated in May 2019, they have successfully continued to enact violence in both Syria and Iraq in recent months.
Iraqi cities have borne witness to multiple car bombs, and thousands of dunams of land have been torched in Nineveh, Saladin and Kirkuk provinces. ISIS have claimed responsibility for much of the arson through its own press outlets. Ambushes, kidnapping, extortion, and arson have also taken place in these areas.
No Iraqi or ISIS casualties were recorded in Saladin or Anbar, according to a separate Cell statement on Monday.
Hashd al-Shaabi (otherwise known as the Popular Mobilization Forces) brigades found and destroyed hideouts and Katyusha and Austrian rockets, as well as IEDs and suicide belts. Factories producing explosives were also found.
Three Hashd fighters were recorded injured while conducting an offensive in Saladin province on Sunday.
Sunday’s operations crossed over the border into Syrian territory by “a distance of ten kilometers,” the Cell’s Sunday statement confirmed.
The operation is being conducted by Iraqi army units, as well as large units of Hashd al-Shaabi and Sunni tribal fighters known as Hashd al-Ahsairi, accompanied by both Iraqi and coalition warplanes, according to Lieutenant General Abdul Ameer Rasheed Yarallah, deputy head of Iraqi joint operations.
ISIS militants swept across northern Iraq back in the summer of 2014, seizing control of several large Sunni-majority cities. It was declared defeated in Iraq in December 2017.
Additional reporting by Lawk Ghafuri
