BAGHDAD, July 28 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi security forces Saturday killed two Islamic State (IS) militants during an operation in villages near Iraq's northern city of Kirkuk, the Iraqi military said.
The federal police launched an operation to clear cluster of villages from remnants of IS militants in west of Kirkuk, some 250 km north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasoul, spokesperson of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command, said in a statement.
The operation resulted in the killing of two IS militants, one was a local IS leader in the town of Hawijah before the Iraqi forces liberated the town in September 2017, the statement said.
The troops destroyed two IS hideouts and defused three roadside bombs, along with arresting 10 IS suspects for interrogation, the statement added.
During the past few months, dozens of IS militants fled their former urban strongholds in Mosul, Salahudin province and Hawijah area in the west of Kirkuk after the Iraqi forces cleared these areas through major anti-IS offensives.
However, many IS remnants have resorted to hideouts in mountainous and rugged areas near the rivers of Tigris and Zab, as well as Himreen mountain range that extends to neighboring Diyala province in eastern Iraq.
On Dec. 9, 2017, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi officially declared full liberation of Iraq from IS militants. But small groups of IS militants regrouped in the rugged areas and have been carrying out attacks against the security forces and civilians despite the repeated Iraqi military operations to hunt them down.
