Iraqi military aircraft have launched a series of aerial attacks against the remnants of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in the country’s north-central province of Salahuddin, killing a number of extremists in the process.

Provincial police source Mohammed al-Bazi said Iraqi Air Force fighter jets struck the rugged Mutibjah area, killing seven Daesh militants and destroying two of their hideouts.

Bazi added that two underground tunnels and two motorcycles belonging to the Takfiris were also destroyed in the aerial attacks.

Military commander killed in bombing in western Iraq

Meanwhile, the head of the Anbar provincial council's security committee, Naim al-Kaoud, told the Arabic service of Russia’s Sputnik news agency that an army commander had lost his life in a powerful bomb explosion.

Kaoud said Lieutenant Colonel Akram Abbas Fahdawi was traveling in a car along the international highway linking the troubled western province of Anbar to Jordan, when Daesh terrorists detonated a roadside bomb.

Iraqis inspect the aftermath of an explosion in Baghdad's Sadr City district on June 7, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

On August 13, the Iraqi Ministry of Defense announced the dismantling of a terrorist cell that was apparently preparing to carry out a terrorist attack in the center of Anbar province.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who is also the commander-in-chief of Iraqi forces, pledged on June 30 to hunt down the remnants of Daesh militants across Iraq after a series of attacks and abductions carried out by the terrorist group.

“We will chase the remaining cells of terrorism in their hideouts and we will kill them, we will chase them everywhere, in the mountains and the desert,” Abadi said.

Abadi declared the end of military operations against Daesh in the Arab country on December 9, 2017.

On July 10 that year, the Iraqi prime minister had formally declared victory over Daesh extremists in Mosul, which served as the terrorists’ main urban stronghold in the conflict-ridden Arab country.

In the run-up to Mosul's liberation, Iraqi army soldiers and volunteer Hashd al-Sha’abi fighters had made sweeping gains against Daesh.

Iraqi forces took control of eastern Mosul in January 2017 after 100 days of fighting, and launched the battle in the west on February 19 last year.

Daesh began a terror campaign in Iraq in 2014, overrunning vast swathes in lightning attacks.