[Rudaw] Iraq’s intelligence service on Tuesday arrested an "important" suspected member of the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems...
(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.
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. 
|
