BAGHDAD, Dec 14 (NNN-NINA) – Commando forces of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS), carried out an operation in Nineveh Province and killed 42 Daesh militants, the Iraqi military said yesterday.
Acting on intelligence reports, the CTS forces, backed by Iraqi and international coalition aircraft, pushed into Ayn al-Jahash, in the south of Nineveh’s provincial capital Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, and fought fierce clashes with the militants for two successive days, Yahia Rasoul, spokesman of the Commander-in-Chief of the Iraqi forces, said.
The troops forced the militants to withdraw and hole- up in tunnels and caves, prompting the CTS troops to storm their hideouts with hand grenades, he added.
The operation resulted in the killing of 42 militants, including five of their local leaders, and the seizure of weapons and ammunition inside the hideouts.
The operation came, as the militants intensified their attacks on the security forces and civilians, in the formerly Daesh-controlled Sunni provinces, resulting in the killing and wounding of dozens.