Iraqi authorities reported on Tuesday that security forces had killed nine Islamic State group leaders, including the terrorists’ top leader in the country, during an operation in the northern mountains.
Iraq’s Joint Operations Command announced in a statement that counterterrorism forces “killed nine terrorists, among them the so-called governor of Iraq” for IS, identified as Jassim al-Mazrouei Abu Abdel Qader.
According to Iraqi security researcher Fadel Abu Raghif, Mazrouei “assumed control of the (IS) Iraq province less than a year ago”.
According to the statement, the operation in the Hamrin Mountains was conducted “with technical support” and intelligence provided by the US-led anti-jihadist coalition.
It further stated that “large quantities of weapons” were recovered during the “still ongoing” operation.
In 2014, the IS organization overran vast areas of Iraq and neighboring Syria, proclaiming its “caliphate”.
It was defeated in Iraq in 2017 by Iraqi forces backed by an international military coalition, and in 2019, it lost the final land it controlled in Syria to US-backed Kurdish forces, but remnants of the group remain active in Iraq and launch irregular assaults.
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s office issued a statement announcing “the killing of the so-called governor of Iraq and eight senior leaders of the terrorist Daesh organization,” using the Arabic term for Islamic State.
Sudani stated that the operation targeted IS hideouts in the Hamrin Mountains and vowed to pursue and destroy extremists throughout Iraq.
Iraqi security forces, backed by the US-led coalition, have conducted many raids on suspected IS hideouts.
The US military reported on Friday that “precision air strikes” carried out by Iraqi forces earlier this month killed a top IS leader and three other extremists.
At the end of August, US and Iraqi forces conducted a coordinated operation in Iraq’s western desert, killing 15 IS members.
According to a July analysis by United Nations specialists, there are around 1,500 to 3,000 jihadists still in Iraq and Syria.
The alliance includes around 2,500 US soldiers in Iraq and 900 in Syria, and Washington and Baghdad decided last month that the decade-long military engagement in Iraq will be ended within a year.