BAGHDAD/BEIRUT: Iraq said on Saturday it had killed 45 militants from the IS group, including senior members, in an air strike in eastern Syria, the second such operation in less than a month.
Iraqi F-16 fighter jets carried out a “successful strike targeting a meeting of Daesh (IS) leaders” on Friday in the Hajin region, in the eastern Syrian province of Deir Ezzor, a military statement said.
Among those killed, it said, were a senior member of the militants’ “ministry of war”, his deputy, a local commander and a media official. There was no independent confirmation.
Three houses linked by an underground tunnel were also destroyed, it said, adding that the air strike was carried out based on “intelligence” and at the request of Prime Minister Haider al Abadi.
Hajin, about 50 kilometres from Iraq’s border, is the largest populated hub still under IS control in Syria.
Last month, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that monitors the Syrian war said that at least 65 senior IS members live in Hajin.
The town has been surrounded since the end of last year by the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters, the monitor says.
Iraq’s air force has carried out several strikes on IS-held territory in Syria since April, including one targeting “the headquarters of IS terrorist gang leaders” in Hajin on May 24.
The following day Iraq released a video showing a strike on a huge building surrounded by palm trees and a wall which then collapsed.
Syrian government forces on Saturday made their first gains on the ground against rebel fighters in Daraa after several days of intensified bombardment, a monitor said.
Since Tuesday, government troops have been ramping up shelling on opposition-held areas in Daraa’s eastern countryside ahead of an apparent military offensive against rebels there.
“Government troops made their first advance in the area since the military escalation on Tuesday, seizing the villages of Al Bustan and Al Shumariya in the eastern part of Daraa province,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday called for an immediate end to a military escalation in southwest Syria and a return to ceasefire arrangements. — AFP
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