Iraq launched on Saturday an air attack on a gathering of ISIS leaders inside neighboring Syria, killing 45 jihadists, including senior members, of the hardline militant group, its military said on Saturday.
F-16 fighter jets carried out a "successful strike targeting a meeting of Daesh (ISIS) leaders" on Friday in the Hajin region, in the eastern Syrian province of Deir Ezzor, a military statement said. The attack destroyed three houses which were connected by a trench.
Those killed included high profile targets such as the group’s “deputy war minister”, one of its “media emirs”, its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s personal courier and its chief of police, the military said in a statement.
ISIS, which once occupied a third of Iraq’s territory, has been largely defeated in the country but still poses a threat along the border with Syria.
“Iraqi F-16 jets carried out a successful air strike that targeted a meeting of Daesh leaders ... in the Hajin area within Syrian territory. The operation resulted in the complete destruction of the targets, and the killing of around 45 terrorists,” the military’s Joint Operations Command said.
Hajin, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Iraq's border, is the largest populated hub still under ISIS control in Syria.
Last month the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that monitors the Syrian war said that at least 65 senior ISIS members live in Hajin.
The town has been surrounded since the end of last year by the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters, the monitor says.
Iraq's air force has carried out several strikes on ISIS-held territory in Syria since April, including one targeting "the headquarters of ISIS terrorist gang leaders" in Hajin on May 24.
The following day Iraq released a video showing a strike on a huge building surrounded by palm trees and a wall which then collapsed.
The Iraqi military has carried out several air strikes against ISIS in Syria since last year, with the approval of the Damascus government of head of Syrian regime Bashar al-Assad and the US-led coalition fighting the militants.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared final victory over ISIS in December but it still operates from pockets along the border with Syria and has continued to carry out ambushes, assassinations and bombings across Iraq.
The group has resorted to guerrilla tactics since it abandoned its goal of holding territory and creating a self-sufficient caliphate that straddles Iraq and Syria.
