KIRKUK: Iraqi forces launched a security operation along a planned oil transit route to Iran on Wednesday, saying it was clearing and “destroying sleeper cells” in the mountaineous border area where two armed groups operate.

Iraqi oil officials announced in December plans to transport Kirkuk crude by truck to Iran’s Kermanshah refinery. The trucking was to start last week and officials declined to give reasons for the delay other than it was technical in nature.

“With the goal of enforcing security and stability, destroying sleeper cells, and continuing clearing operations, an operation was launched in the early hours of this morning to search and clear areas east of Tuz Khurmato,” the Iraqi armed forces said in a statement.

The operation is being conducted by the Iraqi army’s 9th armoured division, the interior ministry’s elite Emergency Response Division, and Iran-backed militias known as the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), with air support from the US-led anti-Daesh coalition and in coordination with Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, the military said. A security official in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government confirmed Peshmerga coordination.

Sources within the PMF said there were between 200 and 500 fighters, belonging to remnants of Daesh and a newly emerging militant group known as the White Banners.

Other security sources said the militants numbered between 500 and 1,000.

Iraqi military officials acknowledge the existence of a group called White Banners but refuse to comment on its composition or leadership. The KRG has “strictly no relations whatsoever”’ with this group, a Kurdish official said.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) appealed on Wednesday for $17 million to help rebuild Iraq’s health facilities, ahead of an international conference to support the country’s reconstruction due to convene next week in Kuwait.

The UN agency said up to 750,000 children are still lacking access to health services in the region of Mosul, seven months after Islamic State militants were driven out from the city.

Less than 10 per cent of health facilities in Mosul’s Nineveh province are functioning, and are “stretched to breaking point”, UNICEF said in a statement, adding that rehabilitation of clinics and hospitals is key to allowing displaced people to return home.

Humanitarian organisations say about 2.6 million people are still displaced, two months after Iraq declared victory over the militants who had taken over nearly a third of the country in 2014 and 2015.