ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — An Islamic State (ISIS) leader was arrested in the eastern province of Deir ez-Zor by internal security forces (Asayish), the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said on Monday.
The Asayish arrested an ISIS leader “known to plan assassinations and finance terror,” read a tweet from the SDF.
The SDF added that weapons and equipment were also seized in the operation.
ISIS seized control of large swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014. The last of its so-called caliphate was defeated in Syria in 2019, but the group remains a threat on both sides of the border, particularly in Deir ez-Zor, which is controlled by both the SDF and regime forces.
The terror group maintains a “significant presence” in rural farming areas under SDF control, the Pentagon said in its latest quarterly report on anti-ISIS operations.
A spate of murders have been recorded across the province in recent months. Several of the dead were part of the SDF.
The SDF arrested 22 ISIS suspects in a two-day military operation in Deir ez-Zor late last month.
Earlier in June, the force said that they had arrested eight ISIS members in multiple operations, including a leader who was planning operations in Deir ez-Zor.
In late May, they arrested 24 ISIS suspects across 53 locations in the province.
A total of 34 operations were conducted against ISIS in the first half of this year, the SDF said on Wednesday, with 245 suspects arrested and three killed.
