13 IS militants killed in airstrikes in Iraq

Baghdad, May 14 (IANS) At least 13 Islamic State militants were killed in airstrikes by Iraqi jets targeting a meeting of the IS leaders and other IS posts in Iraq's western province of Anbar, said the Iraqi military on Saturday.

According to intelligence reports, the jet fighters conducted the airstrikes on Friday on an IS hideout where some IS leaders believed they were holding a meeting in the town of al-Qaim near the border with Syria, said Iraq's Joint Operations Command (JOC) in a statement, Xinhua reported.

The IS leaders were discussing plans for terrorist attacks against civilian targets during the coming holy month of Ramadan, late in this month, as wells as assassinating judges and attacks on the towns of Haditha and Rutba and the international highway between Baghdad and neighboring Jordan, according to the statement.

The airstrikes killed 13 IS militants and wounded others at the meeting place, in addition to bombing eight other IS posts that included weapon warehouses and a car bomb-making site, along with killing and wounding a number of IS militants at the scenes, it said.

On May 9, the jet fighters carried out 15 airstrikes against IS posts near the Syrian border areas, leaving a total of 100 IS militants killed.

In late April, the JOC said that Iraqi F-16s and Sukhoi warplanes attacked IS hideouts within and nearby the town of al-Qaim, some 330 km in western of Baghdad, killing 46 IS militants.

The airstrikes came as the Iraqi security forces backed by anti-IS international coalition are carrying out a major offensive to drive out the IS militants from their major stronghold in the western side of Mosul in northern Iraq.

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