The Iraqi army’s chief of operations Major-General Mahmoud al-Falahi said the troops have started an operation to drive Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) from the desert areas of Anbar province, which borders Saudi Arabia, Al-Sumaria TV channel reports. “The army, police, tribal and border forces, backed by the international coalition, began this morning a large operation to clean the Anbar desert all the way down to the Iraqi-Saudi border,” al-Falahi said. The vast desert areas in the province have been used by IS militants since they fled the liberated cities of Iraq.