Baghdad, SANA- Iraqi security forces recaptured three villages in al-Touz area to the east of Tikrit from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a Police source in Saladin province announced Friday.

Scores of ISIS terrorists were killed in the operation, in which the villages of Qarahnaz, Berjwali and Albo Hassan were retaken by the Iraqi army and popular forces.

In a relevant context, a security unit cleared the southern entrance of Tikrit city after killing 85 terrorists, including Arabs.

These operations pave the way for a wider operation to seize full control of the city’s center.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi forces killed 620 terrorists affiliated to ISIS and destroyed scores of their vehicles in Saladin, al-Anbar and Nineveh provinces in Iraq.

In a statement, the military intelligence said that Iraqi warplanes in cooperation with the military intelligence waged raids on terrorists at al-Sufra camp and al-Mahmoudiyeh village to the north of Saladin province and in Dor al-Qayeda in al-Qayara in Nineveh, killing more than 550 terrorists and destroying scores of their vehicles.

On Thursday, more than 300 Iraqis who were kidnapped by ISIS in the city of Mosul were released following an air strike launched by the Iraqi army.

The Iraqi security forces are engaged in a large-scale military campaign to clean the country from terrorism as ISIS took over large swathes of Iraq and committed massacres against the residents in the areas under their control, driving tens of thousands of people to flee.

Earlier today, the UN Security Council called upon the international community to stand by the Iraqi government in the face of ISIS terrorists, classifying the terrorists’ acts as crimes against humanity.

In an attempt to polish the U.S. administration’s image after reports exposed its ignoring of ISIS crimes, US President Barack Obama announced that he authorized U.S. forces to wage air strikes against ISIS.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier admitted in her recently released diary that her country stands behind the emergence of ISIS to use the terrorist group in dismembering the Middle East region.

Earlier, former U.S. National Security Agency employee Edward Snowden stressed in secret files and documents he leaked that U.S., British and Israeli intelligence services had cooperated to create the now called ISIS to attract and take in terrorists from all around the world to carry out an operation with the aim of protecting the Israeli entity.

B. Mousa/H. Said/ M. Nassr