ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Iraq’s Joint Operations Command (JOC) on Saturday announced that it had killed at least four Islamic State (ISIS) members, in an air raid on one of the group’s hideouts and subsequent combing operations in Kirkuk province.

The Iraqi Security Media Cell announced in a statement that “two successful airstrikes” had been carried out using F-16 fighter jets against “a compound inside which a detachment of the ISIS terrorist gangs was located” in southern Kirkuk's Wadi al-Shay.

The strikes killed at least “three terrorist elements” and also reduced the compound “to rubble.” The fourth individual meanwhile was killed after he was spotted during “an armed reconnaissance by the army's aviation” units to comb the area.

ISIS took control of swathes of Iraqi and Syrian territory in 2014, declaring its so-called caliphate with the Iraqi city of Mosul as its capital. They were territorially defeated with assistance from the US-led coalition forces in Iraq in 2017.

Despite their territorial defeat, ISIS militants continue to pose a security threat in Iraq through sporadic hit-and-run operations and attacks on remote areas. Iraqi forces, in cooperation with Kurdish forces, have intensified their efforts to eliminate these remnants.

Iraq recently received some 5,700 ISIS prisoners from Syria in coordination with Washington, after a January offensive by the Syrian government in Rojava (northeast Syria) raised concern that detention centers, previously operated by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), would be unable to maintain security amid the conflict.