The US military took part in an Iraqi raid in the country’s western region that killed 15 Islamic State militants, the US military said early Saturday.
For years after driving the militants from their self-proclaimed caliphate across Iraq and Syria, US forces have continued to fight Islamic State groupalthough casualties from Friday’s raid were higher than others in the time since then.
The US military’s Central Command claimed the militants were armed with “numerous weapons, grenades and explosive ‘suicide belts'” during the attack, which Iraqi forces said took place in the country’s Anbar desert.
“This operation targeted ISIS leaders to disrupt and impair ISIS’s ability to plan, organize and execute attacks against Iraqi civilians, as well as US citizens, allies and partners throughout the region and beyond,” Central Command said in an acronym for the militant group. “Iraqi security forces continue to further exploit the sites that were attacked.”
It added: “There are no signs of civilian casualties.”
A statement from the Iraqi military said that “airstrikes targeted the hideouts, followed by an airborne operation.”
At its height, the Islamic State group controlled an area half the size of Britain where it sought to enforce its extreme interpretation of Islam, which included attacks on religious minority groups and harsh punishments against Muslims deemed apostates.
A coalition of more than 80 countries, led by the United States, was formed to fight the group, which lost its grip on the territory it controlled in Iraq and Syria in 2017 and in Syria in 2019. However, the militants have continued to operate in the Anbar Desert in Iraq and Syria, while claiming attacks carried out by others elsewhere in the world. The Islamic State branch in Afghanistan is known for carrying out intensely bloody attacks.