Iraqi-US Coordination to Track Down ISIS Cells in Border Areas

US Defense Secretary James Mattis. (Reuters)
US Defense Secretary James Mattis. (Reuters)
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Iraqi-US Coordination to Track Down ISIS Cells in Border Areas

US Defense Secretary James Mattis. (Reuters)
US Defense Secretary James Mattis. (Reuters)

US Defense Secretary James Mattis announced that his country is still tracking down small pockets of ISIS fighters in Iraq, while the Iraqi Interior Ministry announced some 15 militants were killed in border areas between Iraq and Syria.

“ISIS no longer controls cities. Its previously large ranks are decimated. Survivors have scattered into the desert. Yet ISIS still has militants with weapons and plans for renewed mayhem,” Mattis said.

"We have repeatedly said the war is not over," he added, stressing that US forces are still tracking down small pockets of ISIS fighters in Iraq.

He confirmed that the US is still working closely with the Iraqi security forces, hoping they can take full control of the country's territory.

"It may be a dozen ISIS guys who finally find each other. They get together and live in the one house. They start licking their wounds and thinking, 'What can we do?' " Mattis said.

"What we want to do is drive this down to a point it can be handled by local authorities, by police and that sort of thing."

In this context, Spokesman for the Iraqi Interior Ministry Brigadier General Saad Maan said that 15 ISIS militants were killed during a security campaign on the Iraqi-Syrian borders.

“Acting upon intelligence reports, Federal Police killed 15 ISIS militants while moving on the border between Iraq and Syria,” Maan said.

“The security operation was launched after tracking down the ISIS cell for a few days,” he said, adding that the troops seized medium arms and explosive belts.

Commenting on the developments, member of the Security and Defense Committee in the Iraqi parliament Sheikh Eyad al-Jubouri told Asharq Al-Awsat that the “military part of the battle against ISIS has ended in the sense that this terrorist organization no longer controls any area of Iraqi territories except for some pockets in the form of huts here and there.”

He stressed that these huts are being dealt with either through the Iraqi military effort or through cooperation with the US.

“Iraq is aware that the war with terrorism has several chapters, and the remaining pages should be dealt with through integrated efforts that combine what is intelligence with what is societal,” Jubouri added.

For his part, member of the security committee of the Anbar Provincial Council Na'im al-Ka'oud, told Asharq Al-Awsat that ISIS militants are definitely present in the Anbar desert, whose vast terrain will make it difficult to track down the terrorists.

Ka'oud is one of the sheikhs of the Bu Nimr tribe, which was victim to a mass massacre when ISIS occupied Anbar in 2014.

He added that training, equipping and arming Iraqi forces and local police in the province is necessary to be enable them to pursue and eliminate dormant cells.



52 Palestinians Including Children Killed in Israeli Airstrikes in Gaza

Palestinians inspect the destruction at a makeshift displacement camp following a reported incursion a day earlier by Israeli tanks in the area in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza strip on July 11, 2025. (Photo by AFP)
Palestinians inspect the destruction at a makeshift displacement camp following a reported incursion a day earlier by Israeli tanks in the area in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza strip on July 11, 2025. (Photo by AFP)
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52 Palestinians Including Children Killed in Israeli Airstrikes in Gaza

Palestinians inspect the destruction at a makeshift displacement camp following a reported incursion a day earlier by Israeli tanks in the area in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza strip on July 11, 2025. (Photo by AFP)
Palestinians inspect the destruction at a makeshift displacement camp following a reported incursion a day earlier by Israeli tanks in the area in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza strip on July 11, 2025. (Photo by AFP)

Israeli airstrikes killed at least 28 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, including four children, hospital officials said Saturday. Also, 24 others were fatally shot on their way to aid distribution sites.

The children and two women were among at least 13 people who were killed in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, after Israeli airstrikes pounded the area starting late Friday, officials in Al-Aqsa Martyr's Hospital said. Another four people were killed in strikes near a fuel station, and 15 others died in Israeli airstrikes in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, according to Nasser Hospital.

The Israeli military said in a statement that over the past 48 hours, troops struck approximately 250 targets in the Gaza Strip, including militants, booby-trapped structures, weapons storage facilities, anti-tank missile launch posts, sniper posts, tunnels and additional Hamas infrastructure sites. The military did not immediately respond to The Associated Press' request for comment on the civilian deaths.

The Hamas-led group killed some 1,200 people in their Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and abducted 251. They still hold 50 hostages, less than half of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.

Israel’s offensive has killed over 57,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry, which is under Gaza’s Hamas-run government, doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count. The UN and other international organizations see its figures as the most reliable statistics on war casualties.

US President Donald Trump has said that he is closing in on another ceasefire agreement that would see more hostages released and potentially wind down the war. But after two days of talks this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu there were no signs of a breakthrough.