Strike ‘kills 45’ IS fighters in east Syria

IRAQ said on Saturday it had killed 45 jihadists from Islamic State, including senior members, in an airstrike in eastern Syria, the second such operation in less than a month.

Iraqi F-16 fighter jets carried out a “successful strike targeting a meeting of Daesh [IS] leaders” on Friday in the Hajin region, in the eastern Syrian province of Deir Ezzor, a military statement said.

Among those killed, it said, were a senior member of the jihadists’ “ministry of war”, his deputy, a local commander and a media official. There was no independent confirmation.

Three houses linked by an underground tunnel were also destroyed, it said, adding that the air strike was carried out based on “intelligence” and at the request of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

Hajin, about 50 kilometres from Iraq’s border, is the largest populated hub still under IS control in Syria.

Last month the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that monitors the Syrian war said that at least 65 senior IS members live in Hajin.

The town has been surrounded since the end of last year by the Syrian Democratic Forces, a USbacked alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters, the monitor says.

IS declared a cross-border “caliphate” in Syria and Iraq in 2014, seizing a third of Iraq during a sweeping offensive.

The jihadists have since lost much ground to separate counter-offensives by Syrian and Iraqi forces as well as US-led operations, and the jihadist presence has been confined to a few holdouts in Deir Ezzor.