Five Daesh suicide bombers, two security forces killed in operation near Baghdad

Rasa - The terrorists, who were found to be part of a suicide unit, were killed after being surrounded by Iraqi forces during an operation carried out in a village in the southwest of Baghdad, the media office of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command (JOC) said in a statement on Sunday.

The operation was launched based on intelligence reports received by the Iraqi military, and was supported by drones, the statement said, without giving further details about when exactly the raid occurred.

The Iraqi forces managed to kill four suicide bombers, while the fifth one blew himself up, killing an officer and a soldier from the army and intelligence.

The raid came as the Takfiri group’s terrorists have intensified their attacks on security forces, including the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), and civilians in the formerly Daesh-controlled provinces, resulting in the killing and wounding of dozens.

The security situation in Iraq has been improving since the country’s security forces fully defeated the Daesh militants across the country late in 2017.

However, the group’s remnants have since melted in urban areas or deserts and rugged areas, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians.

In one of the most recent atrocities attributed to Daesh, a leading Iraqi security analyst and government advisor was shot dead outside his home in the capital Baghdad, sparking public anger and a wave of condemnations from the country’s senior officials.

Three gunmen on two motorcycles fired at Hisham al-Hashemi, 47, from meters away last Monday, near his home in the Zayouna district, east of Baghdad, according to the investigator assigned to the killing.

A gunman then approached and shot him four times in the head at close range, he said.

Some Iraqi media reports said Daesh had claimed responsibility for the act of terror via Twitter accounts affiliated with the Takfiri outfit.