Airstrikes kill Daesh members in Mosul, Kirkuk: Sources

By Mohamed Walid and Sarhad Shaker

NINEVEH, Iraq (AA) – At least 19 Daesh terrorists were killed and scores more injured by airstrikes carried out by U.S.-led coalition warplanes in and around Iraq’s northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk, military and security sources said Monday.

"Since Sunday morning, Mosul’s forensic medicine department received the bodies of 12 Daesh militants who were killed by airstrikes that targeted their hideouts in the city’s western and eastern districts," Iraqi Army Brigadier-General Shamkhun al-Abbasi told Anadolu Agency.

"Medical sources have also confirmed that at least 37 Daesh militants were injured in the strikes," he said. "Medics in Mosul were forced by the militants to treat some of the injured."

In Iraq’s northern city of Kirkuk, meanwhile, Lieutenant-Colonel Niyaz Zankana, an officer in the Asayish forces -- the semi-autonomous Kurdish region’s security forces -- said U.S.-led coalition aircraft on Monday morning had struck a concentration of Daesh terrorists in the town of Hawija, located some 45 kilometers southwest of Kirkuk.

"At least seven Daesh militants were killed -- and 16 others injured -- in the attack, according to our sources inside Hawija," Zankana told Anadolu Agency.

In mid-October, the Iraqi army -- backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes and local allies on the ground -- launched a wide-ranging offensive to retake Mosul, which Daesh overran in mid-2014.