Baghdad - Najla al-Taiee
The Iraqi Joint Forces were managed to destroy 3 vehicles and another car for IS and killing of its crew, as well as the destruction of a building allocated by the organization for sniping and firing rockets at al-Mutaibaija area in Salahuddin.
This comes as the commander of Tigris Operations, Lieutenant General Mazhar al-Ezzawi, announced, on Thursday, that security forces destroyed six booby-trapped vehicles and three hideouts belonging to IS in al-Mutaibaija area, on the borders between Salahuddin and Diyala.
Ezzawi said in a press statement that the liberation battles of al-Mutaibaija are ongoing for the second day, and achieved significant results so far. "Security forces, backed by al-Hashd al-Shaabi militia, destroyed six booby-trapped vehicles and three hideouts belonging to the Islamic State, as well as seizing an explosives lab," Ezzawi added.
In the same context, Iraqi air forces carried out two air strikes resulting in the destruction of two hideouts and the killing of dozens of extremists and the destruction of a group of wheels that were near them in the area of Mutaibaija, the military information cell said in a statement.
IS's successive defeats in recent months in Iraq and Syria have prompted a number of his foreign fighters to flee towards the Turkish border, according to Western reports. The reports indicated the size of the major collapse in the ranks of IS organization. The Guardian said that a large number of foreign militants abandoned the fighting in the ranks of IS in Syria, and tried to reach the territory of Turkey, citing at least three cases have been detected in the past few days.
Two British nationals and a third American fled from the ranks of IS, which lost vast areas under its control. Its capital, Raqqa, is under siege from US-backed forces leading an international coalition against the militant group.
The newspaper quoted sources as saying that Stephan Aristide, who is from North London and his British wife and American Carrie Clement of Florida, surrendered last week to the Turkish border guards, after two years of joining IS in Syria.
According to the report, which was based on intelligence and security information, dozens of foreign fighters also fled the fighting with IS to the Turkish territory. Some were arrested by border guards while others succeeded in infiltrating into Turkey.