BAGHDAD, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- A total of six militants of the extremist Islamic State (IS) group were killed on Thursday in an operation by the Iraqi security forces in northern Iraq, the Iraqi military said.
Backed by Iraqi aircraft, the security forces conducted an operation in Qara-Chokh Mountain near the town of Makhmour, some 60 km southeast of Nineveh's provincial capital Mosul, the media office of the Iraqi Joint Operation Command (JOC) said in a statement.
During the operation, the security forces spotted four IS militants in Qara-Chokh Mountain, two of the militants were killed by the security forces and the other two fled the scene, the statement said.
After tracking the fled militants, the troops found them in a cave with two more militants, and a helicopter gunship was called in to conduct an airstrike on the cave, killing the four militants inside, it said.
"A total of six terrorists of Daesh gang (IS militants) were killed in the operation," the statement added.
The security situation in Iraq has been improving since the Iraqi forces defeated IS in 2017. However, IS remnants have since melted into urban centers, deserts, and rugged areas, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians. Enditem
