BAGHDAD, Jun 13 (NNN-NINA) – Iraqi security forces yesterday launched an operation, to clear the Daesh militants from the rural areas, in the eastern province of Diyala, the Iraqi military said.
A joint force from the Iraqi army, police, and paramilitary Hashd Shaabi brigades, pushed into an agricultural area south of Diyala’s provincial capital, Baquba, some 65 km north-east of the capital, Baghdad, to chase the militants, Diyala’s police command spokesman, Nihad al-Mahdawi, said.
Meanwhile, Tahseen al-Khafaji, spokesman of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command, said that, the Iraqi forces “have been working for some time … in the border areas with Syria, by setting up towers and thermal cameras for surveillance to prevent the extremist militants from infiltrating from neighbouring Syria.”
Daesh militants are still active in the vast Anbar desert that stretches to the borders with Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, where their remnants have been infiltrating Iraq across the borders, in an attempt to regroup in the country again.– NNN-NINA
