Iraq’s military, backed by Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), has launched a new operation to take out ISIL terrorists in the country’s western areas stretching to the Syrian border.

The Iraqi military announced in a statement that the operation, dubbed “Will of Victory,” began early Sunday morning and was meant to clear a territorial expanse bordered by the three provinces of Salahaddin, Nineveh, and Anbar and toward the Syrian border further west.

The operation would secure the vast western desert leading to the Syrian border amid fears that ISIL sleeper cells are using the area to regroup.

According to the statement, Iraqi armed forces, and fighters from the PMU — better known by the Arabic name Hashd al-Sha’abi — tribal groups, and US-led coalition warplanes were all taking part in the offensive.