Hawzah News Agency - The Defense Ministry’s War Media Cell said Rachid al-Mulla, head of the ISIL's security division in the eastern side of Salahuddin’s town of Shirqat, died when military jets bombarded his

DhSk gun-supplied truck in Sedeira village, Iraqi News reported. 

ISIL has lost tens of thousands of its foreign and local leaders since the Iraqi government, backed by a United States-led coalition and paramilitary troops, launched in 2016 a wide-scale campaign to retake areas the

group had held since 2014. So far, the campaign has managed to recapture Mosul, ISIL’s former capital in Iraq, early July and Tal Afar, a town west of Mosul, by the end of August.

Salahuddin province is among the next targets of Iraq’s anti-ISIL military plans. The Iraqi Joint Operations Command had said its next target would be the town of Hawija, ISIL’s enclave in southwestern Kirkuk.

Preparations are also reported to retake the group’s havens in western Anbar.

ISIL has waged occasional attacks on civilians and security inside Salahuddin and on the borders with Diyala province over the past months.