BAGHDAD, March 9 (Xinhua) -- A total of 12 militants of the extremist Islamic State (IS) group were killed on Tuesday in airstrikes by U.S.-led coalition and Iraqi forces in northern Iraq, the Iraqi military said.
In cooperation with the Iraqi Joint Operations Command (JOC), the coalition's aircraft carried out an airstrike on an IS hideout in Adayah Mountain in the northern province of Nineveh, leaving 10 IS militants killed, the JOC media office said in a brief statement.
The Iraqi security forces then searched the attacked site, found two IS militants wearing suicide belts, and killed them immediately, the statement said.
It also said that the aircraft carried out another airstrike and destroyed a tunnel used by IS militants in the al-Eithah area, east of the provincial capital Tikrit, some 170 km north of Baghdad.
The mountains and vast rugged areas in the north of the Iraqi capital have witnessed intense activities of the IS militants during the past months, despite military operations to hunt them down.
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
