Shafaq News / Iraq has launched on Monday morning a military operation targeting the presence of Islamic State (ISIS) elements towards the borders with Syria.

The operation has been launched deep in the desert of Jazerra Nineveh to eradicate ISIS remnants and clear the border strip between Iraq and Syria, Military sources told Shafaq News Agency.

The sources added that the operation involves the 15^th and 20^th Brigades of the Iraqi army, Western Nineveh Operations Command, Salahuddin Operations Command, Ansar al-Marjiyah Brigade supported by the Army’s Air Force and Military Engineering Department.

A recent spike of ISIS activity in parts of Iraq raised renewed fears about the revival of the group that some six years ago controlled a sizable region extending from Iraq’s northeastern Diyala province to Syria’s northwestern Aleppo governorate. Islamic State operations increased this year in places like Diyala, Salahuddin and north of Baghdad in Iraq in what is known as the "Triangle of Death".

In 2017, Iraq declared victory over ISIS after reclaiming its entire territory.

The victory, announced at the time by former Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, meant the end of a dark chapter that started in the summer of 2014, when the terrorist group invaded and took control of a territory estimated to be about a third of the country’s area.

Having lost all of its urban strongholds, ISIS is now most active in Iraq’s remote deserts and mountains and launches attacks from time to time