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British fighter jets have wiped out two cells of Islamic State fighters in northern Iraq, as military operations against the terrorist group intensified in retaliation for a deadly suicide bombing in Baghdad.

Two RAF Typhoon FGR4s used laser-guided bombs to kill terrorists who were hiding in caves near Bayji, a city 130 miles north of the Iraqi capital, a statement from the Ministry of Defence has revealed.

The strike is the first by British aircraft against Isis targets since October, and is part of efforts to stop the terrorist network regrouping in its former heartlands of Iraq and Syria, the MoD said. The ministry did not provide details of casualties. But a separate airstrike by the US-led military coalition last week killed the terror group’s most senior leader in Iraq.Jabbar Salman Ali Farhan al-Issawi, 43 — known as Abu Yasser — was among ten jihadists killed on Wednesday in a mountain hideout near the northern city of Kirkuk. He is thought to have been co-ordinating Isis operations in the country, including gun and bomb attacks against military and civilian targets.

Iraqi and American officials said the operation that killed al-Issawi was months in the making as they closed in on lower-level Isis leaders in mountain hide-outs near Kirkuk and gathered intelligence about what appeared to be a new centre of Isis operations there. A spokesman for the western coalition said his death was “a significant blow to Daesh [Isis] resurgence efforts in Iraq”, adding: “Thus far in 2021 our partners in Iraq and Syria completed 82 operations against Daesh, preventing 63 terrorists from committing acts of terror.”

The figures included raids on Isis safe houses in Kirkuk and Ninevah provinces that had resulted in the death or capture of several other fighters. Such operations have been called “revenge of the martyrs” by Iraqi officials, in response to last month’s twin suicide bombing in central Baghdad.

At least 32 people died and 110 were wounded when two jihadists blew themselves up on January 21. Isis claimed responsibility for the bombing, saying it was targeting Shia Muslims and Iraqi security forces.

The Iraqi prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, said the “cowardly” attack was a security breach and sacked several senior officials. About 100 British troops have been deployed in Iraq since 2015 to train and support local forces as part of the coalition against Isis, although numbers were reduced during the pandemic. But the bulk of coalition forces have come from the United States, which last month cut troop numbers in Iraq by half to 2,500 personnel.

Typhoon andF-35 Lightning jets based at RAF Akrotiri, southern Cyprus, have been flying armed patrols in the region since the fall of the so-called “caliphate” in 2019, as well as conducting airstrikes against Isis.

The RAF has also flown Reaper drones from Kuwait against Isis targets, most recently in October, when one of them fired guided bombs in support of Iraqi forces in the desert of Anbar province, west of Baghdad.

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