ISIS leader arrested in Hasaka: SDF

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — An Islamic State (ISIS) leader was arrested in the eastern province of Hasaka in northeast Syria (Rojava) by internal security forces (Asayish), the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said on Saturday.

The Asayish forces detained a “leading ISIS operative east of Hasaka,” read a tweet from the SDF.   

Weapons and equipment were also seized, they added.

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 Syria’s Deir ez-Zor, which is controlled by both the SDF and regime forces.

Another ISIS member was detained in the east of Deir ez-Zor on the same day.

The SDF arrested 24 ISIS suspects across 53 locations in late May. 

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 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.