Ankara, April 20 (IANS) Turkey's military killed 32 Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq's Mosul province on Tuesday in retaliation to their attack on a Turkish tank in the Bashiqa training camp.
Ten militants were killed during the operation and an additional 22 got killed as they escaped and hid in one of their buildings which was detonated, reported local NTV news citing anonymous Turkish military sources, according to Xinhua.
IS militants struck a Turkish Armed Forces tank with an anti-tank weaponry on Tuesday, according to NTV news.
No casualties were reported in the attack however.
IS militants launched their first attack against the military camp on December 16 right after Turkey deployed 150 troops into the camp to train an Iraqi Sunni militia to fight the IS.
During another assault on later, five Turkish soldiers were injured.
Turkish soldiers killed 17 IS militants on January 8 as IS militants tried to sneak into the camp.
Ankara also struck IS targets on March 22 as several IS militants attempted to attack the camp.
A Turkish soldier was killed on March 26 during an armed conflict between IS militants and Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces and Turkish military retaliated by attacking IS posts.
Turkey sent 600 troops to the Bashiqa camp on December 4, 2015, claiming they were sent to train Iraqi militia to fight IS militants.
However, Iraq argued that the presence of Turkish troops in the camp violates the country's sovereignty.
Turkey subsequently withdrew a significant number of its troops from the camp.
