The U.S. military participated in an Iraqi raid in the western region of the country that killed 15 Islamic State militants, the U.S. military said early Saturday.
For years after dislodging the militants from their self-proclaimed caliphate across Iraq and Syria, U.S. forces continued to fight the Islamic State Groupalthough the losses from Friday’s raid were higher than those from other raids since.
The U.S. military’s Central Command said the militants were armed with “numerous weapons, grenades and suicide belts” during the attack, which Iraqi forces said took place in the Anbar desert.
“This operation targeted ISIS leadership to disrupt and degrade ISIS’s ability to plan, organize, and conduct attacks against Iraqi civilians, as well as U.S. citizens, their allies, and partners throughout the region and beyond,” Central Command said, using the militant group’s acronym. “Iraqi security forces continue to further exploit the locations attacked.”
He added: “There are no indications of civilian casualties.”
An Iraqi army statement said that “airstrikes targeted the hideouts, followed by an airborne operation.”
At its peak, the Islamic State group ruled an area half the size of the United Kingdom, where it attempted to impose its extreme interpretation of Islam, which included attacks on minority religious groups and harsh punishments for Muslims deemed apostates.
A coalition of more than 80 countries, led by the United States, has formed to fight the group, which lost control of territory it controlled in Iraq 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 elsewhere in the world. The Islamic State branch in Afghanistan is known for carrying out extremely bloody attacks.
