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The Iraqi Defense Ministry on Saturday announced the start of a wide-ranging military operation aiming to clear desert regions in the provinces of Anbar (west), Saladin and Nineveh (north) of remaining Daesh elements.
The operation declared Saturday is the first of its kind carried out in the desert in these three Iraqi provinces since the Iraqi government announced defeating the self-proclaimed Daesh terrorist organization late last year.
Units from the Iraqi army-linked Al-Jazeera and the Badia Operations Command (JBOC), as well as the pro-government Shia Al-Hashd al-Shaabi forces began combing the desert area, Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool, Iraqi military spokesman said in a statement Saturday.
The operation, according to Rasool, has been launched from seven directions and is backed by both the Iraqi Air Force and the U.S.-led International Aliance’s fighter jets.
Last December, officials in Baghdad declared that Daesh's military presence in Iraq had been all but dismantled following operations backed by the U.S.-led International Alliance.
However, from time to time, Iraqi officials announce operations against Daesh-affiliated "sleeper cells" in certain parts of the country.
After months of surveillance, Turkish security forces on Friday arrested Daesh terrorist Mohamed al Celul, who delivered explosives from the Syria to Turkey for the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) to carry out terror attacks across the country.Security units seized 280 kilograms of pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) explosives, which were accumulated over the last eight months, after digging up the basement floor of the suspect’s relatives’ house.PKK-Daesh terror allianceAfter lengthy surveillance process, police unveiled that many PKK terrorists visited the house where the explosives were stored multiple times, indicating the terror link between Daesh and the PKK.Some arrested PKK terrorists recently confessed that they use Daesh terrorists to transport weapons and explosives, which led Turkish counter-terrorism forces to search for the links between the two terror groups.Turkish army 'neutralizes' 56 terrorists over past weekExplosives and weapons transported via underground tunnelsSpecialized anti-terrorism units revealed that Celul was burying the explosives in the basement of his relative’s houses and had been passing through the Turkey-Syria border periodically to avoid drawing attention through legal procedures.The suspect carried Daesh’s weapons from Syria’s northeastern Qamishli to Turkey’s Nusaybin town, located near the border, thorough underground tunnels.“I joined Daesh when it was first founded. I brought my family to Turkey to protect them. I became the terror group’s bomb deliverer. Following orders, I brought PETN explosives to Nusaybin,” Celul said during a police interrogation.Turkish army ‘neutralizes’ 4 PKK terrorists in N. IraqSix PKK terrorists 'neutralized' in eastern Turkey
Turkish police discover link between PKK, Daesh terror groups