An Iraqi military airstrike killed five ISIS militants on the outskirts of Wadi al-Azim in Saladin governorate in Iraq, the government’s security media cell announced on 24 February.
The deaths were confirmed during a search operation following the airstrikes, in which security forces also discovered various equipment belonging to the militants. The operation was conducted by a joint security force composed of the army and the 44th Brigade of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU).
A senior officer in the Iraqi military’s Joint Operations Command said airstrikes successfully targeted many ISIS members and leaders this month to pre-empt attacks by the extremist group, which have escalated in recent months. The attacks have mainly targeted military and security forces outside Iraq’s major cities.
ISIS militants detonated a roadside bomb, killing three Iraqi officers and wounding three others on 14 December of last year, targeting an Iraqi army convoy patrolling the Tarmiya area north of the capital city of Baghdad.
ISIS militants detonated another roadside bomb in Kirkuk five days later, killing 9 Iraqi policemen.
ISIS militants attacked a village in eastern Diyala province on 20 December killing eight Iraqi civilians. This was followed days later by an explosion in the Makhmour district of Nineveh, killing two more Iraqi soldiers.
In January 2022, ISIS killed 11 Iraqi soldiers in an attack on an army base in Diyala governate, after which Iraqi security forces retaliated and killed five ISIS militants in areas of Hawi al-Azim between Diyala and Saladin.
ISIS captured large swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria in 2014, and was territorially defeated in 2017. Though Iraq now enjoys security within the country’s major cities, ISIS cells are still active in parts of the country’s north and west countryside, in particular near borders areas joining Kirkuk, Diyala, and Saladin provinces.
According to Jonathan Lord, a senior fellow and director of the Middle East security program at the Centre for a New American Security, ISIS is still able to carry out attacks in this part of Iraq because “There remain gaps in security due to ongoing political disagreements between federal Iraq and the KRG. Disputes over areas sensitive to Article 140 issues often suffer from incomplete or the inconstant presence of security forces, and this gives ISIS a haven. They have also based themselves in difficult terrain, like the Makhoul Mountains, making operations against them treacherous.”