Baghdad/Mosul, Apr 9 (EFE).– At least 58 jihadists of the Islamic State, or IS, including an armed commander, were killed Saturday in attacks and skirmishes in central and northern Iraq, security officials told EFE.

The Center of Operations for the liberation of Nineveh province reported in a communique the death of the Islamic State’s head of security in the northern town of Kharabardan, Fadel Badr Ahme, alias “Abu Aisha,”

According to the note, Abu Aisha was shot down while trying to approach army forces in that area south of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh.

A security source told EFE that in Anbar province, 19 IS fighters lost their lives in a bombing by the international coalition against a group of armed men in the al-Kartan area east of Ramadi, the provincial capital.

The source added that four Iraqi soldiers died and 10 were wounded in a suicide attack by the jihadist at the wheel of a car-bomb in the Albu Bali area, also east of Ramadi.

Elsewhere, a security official in the city of Tikrit, capital of Saladin governorate north of Baghdad, reported to EFE the death of eight IS jihadists and of a militiaman of the pro-government Popular Multitude force, in clashes in the al-Fatha area, 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Tikrit.

In the skirmishes, six militiamen suffered wounds of varying degrees of severity.

Another 15 combatants of the Islamic States died in Nineveh in an aerial bombardment by the coalition led the United States against a defensive position in the town of al-Hach, located north of al-Quyara, an important jihadist stronghold.

At the same time, five jihadists were killed in another air strike against al-Hach, while 10 IS combatants lost their lives in a third aerial bombardment targeting the town of Mahana, also south of Mosul.

Last March, government forces launched an offensive in an attempt to take back Mosul, which fell into the hands of the IS in June 2014. EFE