Shafaq News- Kirkuk

Iraqi forces launched a search operation in Kirkuk’s Zaghaitoun Valley on Tuesday to determine whether three ISIS militants had been killed in two Iraqi F-16 airstrikes, a security source told Shafaq News.

Army units, backed by Iraqi Army Aviation helicopters, began combing the area between Al-Rashad subdistrict and Daquq district in southern Kirkuk to assess the strikes’ results, the source said.

On Monday, the Iraqi Security Media Cell reported that the first strike targeted the militants’ position and the second destroyed a tunnel.

ISIS lost territorial control in Iraq in 2017 but continues to operate through scattered cells in remote parts of Kirkuk, Saladin, and Diyala. Iraqi forces regularly target these groups, including in October, when F-16 strikes destroyed a hideout in Diyala’s Narin area.

Read more: ISIS attacks in Kirkuk test Iraq’s post-coalition security