Daesh terrorists killed by airstrikes in northern Iraq

By Mohamed Waleed and Serhad Shaker

NINEVEH, Iraq

At least eight Daesh terrorists were killed on Friday by airstrikes carried out by the Iraqi air force in a mountainous region of northern Iraq.

"The terrorists were killed by two separate airstrikes that targeted two tunnels in the northern Badoush Heights region [of Nineveh province]," Colonel Ahmad al-Jubouri of the army’s Nineveh Operations Command told Anadolu Agency.

Following the strikes, at least 17 other Daesh terrorists were arrested in the same area, al-Jubouri said.

In a related development, four Iraqi army personnel were killed late Thursday when Daesh militants attacked a checkpoint near the town of Badoush 20 kilometers west of Mosul, according to Major Saad Mahous of the Iraqi army's 20th Division.

All of the militants managed to flee following the attack, Mahous said.

Last year, officials in Baghdad declared that Daesh's military presence in Iraq had been all but dismantled. The notorious terrorist group, however, still appears to maintain "sleeper cells" in certain parts of the country.