Outgoing Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki vowed Monday that Iraq will be a "graveyard" for terrorist gunmen as he visited the town of Amerli after the breaking of an 11-week siege.

Outgoing Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki vowed Monday that Iraq will be a "graveyard" for terrorist gunmen as he visited the town of Amerli after the breaking of an 11-week siege.

"Iraq will be a graveyard for (the Islamic State)," Maliki said in televised remarks from the town, referring to the so-called 'Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant', also dubbed as ISIL.

Iraqi security forces and Kurdish fighters launched a major operation on Saturday to lift the siege of Amerli, a town in Salaheddin province, northeast of Baghdad, where thousands of mainly Turkmen residents had been trapped.

They broke through and secured the town on Sunday and are now pressing their counteroffensive elsewhere in the area.