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BAGHDAD, June 28-- A number of Islamic State (IS) militants have been killed in central Iraq in airstrikes launched by the international anti-IS coalition, the Iraqi military said Thursday. Acting on intelligence tips from the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service (CTS), the coalition aircraft pounded IS positions and underground bases in Himreen mountainous area and the nearby Himreen Lake, Yahya Rasoul, spokesman of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command, said in a statement. The successful strikes killed a group of IS and other militants, and destroyed a camp and three tunnels, which were used in carrying out terrorist attacks on the main road that connecting the provinces of Kirkuk, Salahudin and Diyala, Rasoul said without saying when the airstrikes took place. Earlier in the day, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, also the commander-in-chief of Iraqi forces, tasked the elite CTS forces with launching operations against the terrorist group, which killed and kidnapped dozens of civilians and security members in the past few weeks. A statement by his office said Abadi visited the headquarters of the CTS and met with the commanders to discuss the operations. "Daesh (IS group) are not in control of any areas, and its members are hiding in mountains, which they used previously, and we have ordered to hunt them down," Abadi said. Abadi's comments came a day after the Iraqi forces found eight executed bodies of people kidnapped earlier by the IS group near the village of Sarha at the provincial border between Diyala and Salahudin in central Iraq. | 
