Iraqi forces have secured the outskirts of al-Qayyarah district, south of Mosul, from "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" (ISIS) remnants, a local official said Monday (November 18th).

The Iraqi army's 16th Division, military intelligence units and local tribesmen have launched over the last few days a series of search operations around al-​​Qayyarah to look for ISIS militants, district director Saleh Hassan Ali told Diyaruna.

The forces searched several remote areas stretching south-west in the Hatra desert and north towards al-Shura, he said, noting that they "penetrated several kilometres deep into desert areas, thoroughly combing them via air and ground reconnaissance".

Security forces did not encounter any ISIS remnants during the search operations, he said, but were able to "deploy and tighten their control over a large area of the desert, thus removing the terrorist threat and fully securing the outskirts of al-Qayyarah".

The military campaigns in the district and towns south of Mosul over the last two months "have inflicted heavy losses on ISIS remnants, killing scores of them in successful airstrikes that destroyed their tunnels, secret shelters, and weapons and explosives caches", Ali said.

The situation in al-Qayyarah has been stable for a long period of time, "thanks to the joint forces' exceptional efforts and intelligence work that is supported by the local population", he said.