By Idris Okuducu

MOSUL, Iraq

Some 60 militants from the Daesh terrorist group were killed in clashes with peshmerga forces in Iraq’s northern city of Mosul, a Peshmerga commander told Anadolu Agency on Tuesday.

According to Brigadier-General Behcet Teymez of the peshmerga Special Forces ("Zeravani") unit (operated under the auspices of the Kurdish Regional Government), the Daesh terrorists had been killed by Kurdish fighters after attempting to carry out multiple bomb attacks in Mosul.

"Daesh carried out a wide-scale attack involving 11 suicide bombers on the Keske front and the Old Mosul area," Teymez said.

"About 60 militants were slain in the clashes that followed," he added, going on to assert that the militants had been killed while attempting to infiltrate peshmerga positions.

According to the Special Forces commander, one peshmerga fighter was killed -- and three others injured -- in the fighting.

Iraq has been dogged by rampant insecurity since 2014, when Daesh overran Mosul and declared a self-styled "caliphate" in parts of Iraq and Syria. 

* Anadolu Agency Correspondent Servet Gunerigok contributed to this report from Ankara