Baghdad, Sep 9 (IANS) Eight Islamic State (IS) militants were killed on Sunday in an airstrike by the US-led coalition aircraft in Iraq's Nineveh province while security forces captured nine IS extremists in Salahudin province, the Iraqi military said.

Acting on intelligence reports from Nineveh's Operations Command, the coalition aircraft conducted an airstrike against IS positions at an island in the Tigris river, named Hawi Aslan, near the town of Hammam al-Alil, some 20 km south of the provincial capital Mosul, a statement by the media office of the Joint Operations Command (JOC) said, Xinhua reported.

The airstrike resulted in the killing of eight of the extremist IS militants, according to the JOC statement.

Separately, according to intelligence reports, a force from Salahudin's Operations Command arrested nine IS militants, believed that they planned to carry out attacks on the provincial council building and security forces, the JOC said in a separate statement without giving further details.


--IANS pgh/