BAGHDAD, April 19 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi warplanes on Sunday carried out airstrikes on hideouts of Islamic State (IS) militants in Salahudin province, leaving a number of the extremist militants killed, the Iraqi military said.
Acting on intelligence reports, the F-16 fighter jets bombed IS hideouts at an island in the Tigris River near the town of al-Dour, some 150 km north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, the media office of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command said in a statement.
The airstrikes resulted in the killing of a number of IS militants and the destruction of their hideouts, the statement said without giving further details.
However, Mohammed al-Bazi from Salahudin provincial police told Xinhua that at least three IS militants were initially confirmed killed in the airstrikes.
In a separate incident, an Iraqi soldier was killed and another wounded when IS militants ambushed an Iraqi army force at a village near Qara-Chokh Mountain outside the town of Makhmour, some 100 km southeast of the northern city of Mosul, a source from the Kurdish security forces, known as Peshmerga, told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
Later in the day, a joint force from the Iraqi army and the Peshmerga carried out a search operation in the nearby areas looking for the attackers, the source said.
The security situation in Iraq has been improved since Iraqi security forces fully defeated the extremist IS militants across the country late in 2017.
However, IS remnants have since melted in urban areas or resorted to deserts and rugged areas, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians. Enditem
