Terrorism in Iraq

The Islamic State’s supreme leader has delivered a speech ordering his fighters to flee urban areas in Mosul, a presumable acknowledgement of defeat to U.S.-backed Iraqi forces and militias fighting to retake the city.

The media should be on alert against the "propaganda power of terrorism" and will have to "watch its step," Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş said on Feb. 23, state-run Anadolu agency has reported.

U.S.-backed Iraqi security forces captured Mosul airport on Feb. 23, state television said, in a major gain in operations to drive the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) from the western half of the city.

The Iraqi Air Force carried out a strike on a house where Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was thought to be meeting  other commanders, the Iraqi military said on Feb. 13, without making clear whether he had been hit. 

After months of preparation and supported by the U.S.-led coalition's air power, the Iraqi army finally started its military operation to retake Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on Oct. 17, 2016. Since then, the operation has maintained a slow but steady progress, reaching the Tigris River by Jan. 8.

An elite team of US commandos killed a senior leader of ISIS this week.

According to the ABC News, the alleged finance chief of ISIS, Abu Anas al-Iraqi was killed Sunday in an operation in Syria by the U.S. Expeditionary Targeting Force.

Two suicide bomb attacks in separate market places in Baghdad claimed the lives of at least 19 people yesterday. 

A suicide bomber targeted Baghdad's main vegetable market killing at least 12 people in the latest attack claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). 

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed responsibility for a suicide car bomb attack that killed at least 32 people on Jan. 2 in Baghdad.

The jihadist organization took responsibility for the blast in Sadr City via its propaganda agency Amaq, claiming the "martyrdom operation" had killed around 40 people.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on Jan. 2 claimed the deadly nightclub attack in Istanbul targeting New Year's revelers, which left 39 dead and 65 wounded, Reuters has reported.

Iraqi forces will resume their push against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) inside Mosul in the coming days, a U.S. battlefield commander said, in a new phase of the two-month-old operation that will see American troops deployed closer to the front line in the city.