BAGHDAD, June 1 (Xinhua) -- Two soldiers and two Islamic State (IS) militants were killed on Monday in an airstrike and a bomb attack in the Iraqi provinces of Nineveh and Diyala, Iraqi military said.
In one of the attacks, two Iraqi soldiers were killed and two others wounded when a roadside bomb exploded on their vehicle during an operation to hunt down IS militants near a mountain outside the town of Makhmour, some 100 km southeast of Nineveh's provincial capital Mosul, the media office of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command said in a statement.
In Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, Iraqi helicopter gunships bombed IS positions in Udheim area, some 60 km north of the provincial capital Baquba, Alaa al-Saadi from the provincial police told Xinhua.
Also in the province, a security force carried out an operation on an IS bomb-making site near Baquba, some 65 km northeast of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, which resulted in arresting three of the extremist IS militants, al-Saadi added.
The incidents came as the extremist IS militants intensified their attacks on the security forces, including Hashd Shaabi forces, and civilians in the formerly IS-controlled Sunni provinces, resulting in the killing and wounding of dozens.
The security situation in Iraq has been improving since Iraqi security forces fully defeated the IS militants across the country late in 2017.
However, IS remnants have since melted in urban areas or deserts and rugged areas, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians. Enditem
