Security forces on Sunday killed an Islamic State commander and four fighters in the Hamrin Mountains region of northeastern Iraq, the army said.
Iraqi-US-led coalition warplanes carried out airstrikes in the area, targeting militant hideouts, for three days.
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The elite Counter Terrorism Service and Diyala Province Military Operations Command did not name the commander, but they said in a statement that he was in charge of Islamic State forces in Hamrin .
He and four “followers” were killed in the area northeast of Baquba, the provincial capital, on Sunday, he added.
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Iraq declared victory over the group, which once held large swathes of the country, in December 2017.
With its dream of a caliphate in the Middle East now dead, the Islamic State has moved on to blitzkrieg aimed at undermining the government in Baghdad.
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The militants have regrouped in the Hamrin mountain range in the northeast, which stretches from Diyala province, on the border with Iran, northwest to the Tigris River in Kirkuk province.
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