Tasnim – Iraqi military forces continued their assault on members of the Daesh (ISIL) terrorist group in the province of Salahuddin on Thursday, killing at least 43 militants in al-Shirqat region.

According to Iraq’s Al-Sumaria TV, the military forces launched an attack on Daesh terrorists in a village near al-Shirqat town north of Salahuddin, killing 43.

In the capital Baghdad, intelligence forces captured a terrorist in al-Amiriya neighborhood in an ambush.

Meanwhile, an Iraqi commander said security forces have killed seven suicide bombers and destroyed an IED-making factory in the northern parts of the Hadithah Dam Lake in al-Anbar Province.

Reports also suggest that Iraqi Federal Police have gained control of a huge Daesh military base near the northern city of Mosul.

In a statement, Iraqi Federal Police Chief Lieutenant General Shaker Jawdat said his forces have controlled a training center known as ‘Abu Massoud camp’ at al-Bouseif village, west of Mosul.

According to the commander, the underground camp stretches over an area of 1,500 square meters.

He added that the security forces have gained full control over al-Sarjkhana street, reaching to the Tigris River.

Last week, after eight months of difficult urban warfare, Iraqi military forces captured the Mosul mosque at the heart of the northern city, which Daesh had declared its de facto capital.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said the liberation of the site of the symbolic al-Nuri Mosque in Old Mosul is “the declaration of the end of the statelet of Daesh.”

Daesh stronghold in Syria’s Raqqa is also close to falling.

Daesh militants made swift advances in northern and western Iraq over the summer of 2014, after capturing swaths of northern Syria.

Afterwards, a combination of concentrated attacks by the Iraqi military and the volunteer forces, who rushed to take arms after Ayatollah Sistani issued a fatwa calling for the fight against the militants, blunted the edge of Daesh offensive and forced the terrorist group withdraw from much of the areas it had occupied.