(Washington) The US military has conducted a raid with the Iraqi army against the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) in western Iraq and killed 15 of its fighters, the US military command for the Middle East (Centcom) announced on Friday in a statement on X.
“This ISIS group was armed with numerous weapons, grenades and explosive belts. There is no indication that there were any civilian casualties,” Centcom added.
The operation, carried out Thursday morning but made public Friday evening, “targeted ISIS leaders in order to disrupt and undermine ISIS’s ability to plan, organize and carry out attacks against civilians in Iraq as well as against American citizens, allies and partners in the region and beyond,” the US military command said.
Centcom said the Iraqi military “continues to explore the raid site,” without providing further details about the operation.
The EI “remains a threat to the region, our allies and our national territory,” Centcom also believes.
The United States deploys about 2,500 troops in Iraq and nearly 900 in Syria as part of the international coalition created to fight the Islamic State group.
After its meteoric rise to power in 2014 and the conquest of vast territories in Iraq and neighboring Syria, IS saw its self-proclaimed “caliphate” collapse under the blow of successive offensives in these two countries.
Although Iraqi authorities declared “victory” over ISIS in late 2017, jihadist cells continue to sporadically attack soldiers and police officers, particularly in rural and remote areas outside major cities.
Iraq announced on August 15 the postponement of the end of the mission on its territory of the international anti-jihadist coalition led by Washington, justifying this delay by the “latest developments” in an explosive regional context.