Iraqi forces conduct clear-out drive against IS rebels from Diyala�s rural regions

(MENAFN) The Iraqi military stated that on Saturday, Jun. 12 Iraqi security forces conducted a drive to clean-up the Islamic State (IS) rebels from the rural regions in the eastern province of Diyala. Diyala's police command spokesperson Nihad al-Mahdawi said to Xinhua that a joint force from the Iraqi army, police, and paramilitary Hashd Shaabi groups sent to an agricultural region south of Diyala's provincial capital Baquba, around 65 km northeast of the capital Baghdad, to run after IS rebels. In the meantime, Tahseen al-Khafaji, spokesperson of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command, said to the official Iraqi News Agency that the Iraqi forces "have been working for some time ... in the border areas with Syria by setting up towers and thermal cameras for surveillance to prevent the extremist militants from infiltrating from neighboring Syria." IS rebels are still operating in the huge Anbar desert that extends to the frontiers with Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, where IS remainders have been breaking into Iraq across the frontier in a bid to regroup in the nation once more.