Iraqi Kurdish forces in anti-Daesh commando raid — officials

KIRKUK — Iraqi Kurdish forces carried out a commando operation near Hawijah in which several senior members of the Daesh terror group were captured or killed, local and security sources said Saturday.

The operation involved helicopters and bore similarities with a joint raid elite Kurdish troops conducted in October with US special forces also near Hawijah, the sources said.

Local Iraqi security officials said the raid took place overnight in the town of Riyadh, south east of Daesh-held Hawijah and south-west of Kurdish-controlled Kirkuk.

"The operation targeted a Daesh hideout," said Sarhad Qadir, a police brigadier general in Kirkuk district.

"A fight erupted between the two sides which led to the death of several Daesh members and the arrest of another group of them," he told AFP.

Qadir and other officials said a local Daesh leader called Hussein Al Assafi was among those killed in the operation.

Some sources said the raid was a joint operation with US commandos but the US-led anti-Daesh coalition's spokesman, Colonel Steve Warren, denied any involvement.

Rokan Mekhlef Jassem, a police captain from Hawijah, said nine Daesh members were detained and 12 killed, but no confirmation was immediately available from the government of the autonomous Kurdish region.

Ibrahim Al Juburi, an official in the Hawijah mayor's office before the area was taken over by Daesh last year, also confirmed a raid on a militant hideout.

He said Assafi was a member of the Islamic Army from 2003 to 2010 and then of the Ansar Al Sunna insurgent group. 

He pledged allegiance when Daesh took over in June 2014 and was made a militant chief in Riyadh, Juburi said.

Iraqi forces, including fighters from the Popular Mobilisation paramilitary organisation and from the Kurdish peshmerga, have been slowly closing in on Hawijah in recent months.

Kurdish anti-terrorism forces and US special forces conducted a raid on October 23 during which 70 captives described as facing imminent execution were freed.

A US serviceman died of wounds sustained during the brazen operation, which seemed to mark a break from Washington's declared "no boots on the ground policy".

The US defence secretary, Ashton Carter, said the next day that he expected more such raids in the future.