Iraq's popular forces announced that they have brought down a hostile surveillance aircraft over al-Raka'yee region in Nineveh province.

Elsewhere, ISIL's notorious commander, Ebrahim Mohammad Halil, nom de guerre Abu Suleiman, was killed in an Iraqi airstrike.

The Iraqi forces also managed to destroy six of ISIL's armored and bomb-laden vehicles in Nineveh province.

Iraqi army sources announced on Tuesday that Halil was ISIL commander in Southern Mosul.

"In the meantime, Iraqi Army soldiers fended off ISIL's offensives on the Nineveh Operations Room in the Northern side of al-Qayyara, destroying their bomb-laden suicide vehicles," the Iraqi sources said.

Local sources also said that ISIL has planned a large number of bombs, explosive traps and landmines across vital roads to Mosul, airport buildings and airport runway to confront the Iraqi government forces' impending large-scale operation to liberate Mosul.

On Monday, the Iraqi air force destroyed the building of ISIL's radio station in the city of Mosul.
The ISIL's radio broadcasting building came under the Iraqi fighter jets' raids, killing all ISIL terrorists inside the building, a security source in Nineveh province said.

SA - 12