ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s intelligence service on Tuesday arrested an “important” suspected member of the Islamic State (ISIS) in the Kurdistan Region’s province of Sulaimani after tracking him down for ten months, the country’s Security Media Cell said.
“The Iraqi National Intelligence Service managed to arrest an important terrorist target involved in targeting security forces and civilians in a number of Iraqi provinces,” a statement from the cell reads, adding that the suspect was active in areas north of the capital Baghdad, as well as Kirkuk and Salahaddin.
Since the rise of ISIS in 2014, thousands of people have been detained across Iraq for suspected links to terrorist groups, including ISIS, while hundreds have been executed. Amnesty International in March reported that at least 20 death sentences have been handed down since Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani assumed office in October.
While the group was territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017, it continues to pose serious security risks through hit-and-run attacks, bombings, and abductions, particularly in the areas disputed between Erbil and Baghdad which stretch across the provinces of Salahaddin, Kirkuk, and Diyala.
According to the cell, the Tuesday operation in Sulaimani was carried out in coordination with counterterrorism forces in the city.
At least 17 people sentenced to death for terror charges in Iraq were executed in 2021, reported AFP. Amnesty recorded 45 executions in 2019, down from 100 the year before.
An Iraqi F-16 strike on a suspected ISIS hideout in Kirkuk on Tuesday resulted in the deaths of at least four alleged members of the group, the cell announced.
Also on Tuesday, a Baghdad court sentenced eight people to death for attempting to restructure ISIS from prison and escape the facility.
Over 200 ISIS fighters were killed in Iraq in 2022, Major General Tahsin al-Khafaji, spokesperson for the Joint Operations Command, told Rudaw late December.
