BAGHDAD, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi Joint Operations Command announced on Monday to have freed six Yazidi women and their six children kidnapped by the Islamic State (IS) militants near Mosul, some 400 km north of Iraq's capital Baghdad.
"Iraq's security forces freed six women and their six children abducted by IS terrorists from Mosul," Yahya Rasoul, spokesman of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command, said in a statement.
"A joint force acted on intelligence reports and launched an operation to free the abducted women and children, and later escorted them to safety in the Yazidi town of Sinjar, some 120 km west of Mosul," Rasoul added.
In December 2017, Iraq declared full liberation from the IS after the security forces and the paramilitary Hashd Shaabi units, backed by the anti-IS international coalition, recaptured all areas once seized by the extremist group.
However, IS remnants have since melted in urban areas or resorted to deserts and rugged areas as safe havens, carrying out guerilla attacks from time to time against the security forces and civilians.
