According to Al-Alam correspondent, extremist militants from the so-called group of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant are no longer remaining in these cities following the successful operation of army troops.

The foreign backed militants took Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit on Wednesday as soldiers and security forces abandoned their posts.

According to Al-Alam report, five more areas within Mosul neighborhood including Tala’afer were also entirely cleared of ISIL militants on Friday.

Moreover, one of key leader of ISIL terrorist group, Abu Dujane Al-Maghrebi was also killed during the army operation in Salahuddin Province in northern Baghdad, the report added.

Iraqi security officials also said on Friday that the army is battling the terrorists in the outskirts of the city of Muqdadiyah, situated northeast of Baquba, in Iraq’s eastern Diyala Province, Press TV reported.

The extremist militants from ISIL have captured two provincial capitals this week, namely Tikrit in the Salahuddin Province and Iraq’s second city of Mosul in the northern Nineveh Province.

Over the past days, Iraqi armed forces have been engaged in fierce clashes with the extremist terrorists, who have threatened to take their acts of violence to other Iraqi cities, including the capital.

Baghdad does not appear to be in imminent danger from a similar assault, although foreign backed terrorists have stepped up car bombings and suicide attacks in the capital in recent months.

NJF/NJF