ISIS hideout destroyed in northern Baghdad operation

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraqi forces on Thursday destroyed an Islamic State (ISIS) hideout in northern Baghdad on the sixth day of a large-scale security operation launched earlier this week to clear out the group’s remnants north of the capital. 

A hideout used by ISIS remnants was destroyed in northern Baghdad’s Tarmiyah district, the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) told Iraqi state media.

On Saturday, Iraqi forces launched a security operation to clear out remants of the terror group in Tarmiyah district.

They arrested one ISIS suspect and found three hideouts in orchards in the district on Wednesday, according to Yehia Rasool, Iraq’s top military spokesperson. 

ISIS seized control of swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014. The group was declared territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017 and Syria in 2019, but remains a threat on both sides of the border, carrying out bombings, hit-and-run attacks, and abductions across several provinces.

Tarmiyah is vulnerable to ISIS attacks, with four soldiers killed in an IED explosion in the district in May. A security source blamed the attack on the terror group.

Five ISIS militants were killed in an ambush in Tarmiyah in February.

The terror group has carried out several attacks this summer, particularly on Iraq’s electricity grid, contributing to power shortages that have plunged parts of central and southern Iraq into the dark.

Security forces have thwarted tens of attacks on the electricity towers, and in an emergency security meeting on Friday, Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi ordered the establishment of a crisis cell to ensure the power grid is protected.