Airstrikes by the Iraqi army on Saturday killed nine "
terrorists
" involved in an attack by the Islamic State (IS) group that claimed the lives of eleven soldiers in Diyala province a week ago, security forces assured .
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The January 21 night attack, claimed by IS on its Telegram channels, targeted an Iraqi army base in the Hawi Alarm region in eastern Iraq.
Eleven soldiers, including a lieutenant, were killed.
Referring to this attack, which they had pledged to "
revenge
", the security forces said in a statement on Saturday evening that they had "
located the exact location in Hawi alarm where the terrorist group which perpetrated this criminal act was
".
"
Three precise strikes carried out by Iraqi F-16s have killed nine terrorist elements so far
," the statement added, adding that "
the mission is still ongoing
."
After a meteoric rise in power in 2014 in Iraq and neighboring Syria and the conquest of vast territories, the IS saw its self-proclaimed "
caliphate
" waver under the blow of successive offensives in these two countries.
But while Iraq declared its "
victory
" against IS at the end of 2017, jihadists remain a threat and continue to carry out occasional attacks against villagers and security forces in the north of the country, particularly in the Kirkuk region. and in the provinces of Salaheddine and Diyala.
The jihadist organization "
maintains a largely clandestine presence in Iraq and Syria and leads a sustained insurgency on both sides of the border between the two countries
", according to a UN report published last year.
In these two countries, the jihadist organization would retain "
a total of 10,000 active fighters
", according to this report.