Three ISIS hideouts were raided in Anbar’s Rutba desert, Yehia Rasool said in a tweet.
ISIS leader Abu al-Baraa was killed during the operation, he added. No information was given about Baraa’s role within the militant group.
ISIS seized control of swaths of land in Iraq in 2014. The group was declared territorially defeated in 2017, but it continues to carry out bombings, hit-and-run attacks, and abductions across several provinces, particularly in remote border areas of Anbar, and provinces disputed between Erbil and Baghdad where militants have taken shelter in a security vacuum.
On Saturday, Iraqi and Peshmerga forces conducted a joint operation to clear out ISIS remnants in Nineveh province. The Ministry of Peshmerga said the operation ended “successfully.”
ISIS attacked the Peshmerga forces on the Erbil-Kirkuk border three times in the past week. The forces repelled two of the attacks but two Kurdish soldiers were killed in one incident.
ISIS also claimed responsibility for a bloody attack in Diyala province where it killed at least 15 people and injured a dozen more.
Last month, Iraqi forces arrested top ISIS financier and deputy to former leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
In the latest edition of its weekly propaganda magazine al-Naba, ISIS claimed it carried out 16 attacks in Iraq, killing and injuring 25 people.
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