SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Three Lebanese citizens fighting alongside Islamic State (ISIS) militants were killed in an airstrike carried out by Iraqi warplanes, the official Iraqi news agency reported on Sunday.
“Three Lebanese were killed while fighting alongside ISIS terrorist gangs in Iraq during the airstrike that targeted the terrorist cell in al-Azim in Diyala province,” INA quoted a security source as saying.
On Saturday, the Iraqi military said the country’s warplanes bombed an ISIS cell in Azim area in eastern Diyala province, killing nine militants.
The group was “responsible for the al-Azim incident in Diyala”, the military added.
Eleven Iraqi soldiers were killed after ISIS militants attacked a military base in the area on January 21. The attack was one of the deadliest targeting the Iraqi military in recent months.
The three Lebanese killed in the strike were named as “Omar Saif, Anas Saif and Bakr Saif”.
In retaliation to the attack on the Iraqi military, F-16 fighter jets bombed a pickup truck killing three ISIS members including two leaders, the military said on January 22.
ISIS controlled roughly a third of Iraq between 2014 and 2017. Iraqi forces and Kurdish troops backed by U.S.-led Coalition forces as well as Iran-backed Shia militias defeated the militant group in 2017, but its members still roam areas of northern Iraq and northeastern Syria.
