ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) announced on Wednesday the arrest of six suspected Islamic State (ISIS) members and the destruction of several militant hideouts during coordinated security operations across the country.
In a statement, the CTS said the operations were part of “our ongoing efforts to enhance security and stability and to pursue the remnants of the defeated ISIS terrorist gangs,” based on “precise intelligence and high-level field monitoring” in multiple provinces.
The CTS added that the operation, carried out in collaboration with the Iraqi National Intelligence Service (INIS), resulted in “the arrest of four terrorists in Kirkuk.” The militants were reportedly responsible for transporting and delivering supplies to the group’s sleeper cells.
Two additional suspects were arrested in separate operations - one in Mosul, the capital of northern Iraq’s Nineveh province, and another in Baghdad, the statement added.
The statement also noted that CTS units conducted extensive search and clearance operations in Kirkuk’s Dibis district, in coordination with the Kurdistan Region’s Sulaimani-based Asayish Directorate of Operations and the Commando Forces, targeting suspected ISIS hideouts.
The CTS further noted that its units carried out extensive search and clearance operations targeting suspected ISIS hideouts in the Dibis district, northwest of Kirkuk. These efforts were in coordination with the Directorate of Operations and the Commando Forces - an affiliate of the internal security forces (Asayish) in the Kurdistan Region’s eastern Sulaimani province - the Iraqi counter-terrorism forces added.
Moreover, the CTS conducted “clearance operations in [the central] Salahaddin province, within the Hamrin mountain range,” resulting “in the destruction of six hideouts and caves belonging to the remnants of ISIS.”
ISIS seized control of large swathes of territory in Iraq in 2014 but was defeated in 2017 after three years of fierce fighting. Despite its defeat, the group continues to pose a security threat, particularly in disputed areas and security gaps between Erbil and Baghdad, spanning several provinces, including Diyala, Kirkuk, Nineveh, and Salahaddin.
Last month, Major General Tahsin al-Khafaji, Director of Media and Moral Guidance at Iraq’s defense ministry, told Rudaw that ISIS “is dying” and no longer has the capacity to threaten Iraq or the Kurdistan Region.
Khafaji credited unprecedented coordination between Iraqi and Kurdish forces in disputed territories, along with reinforced security along the Syrian frontier, for closing long-standing gaps previously exploited by militants.
Cooperation with the Kurdish Peshmerga “is very high,” the senior defense ministry official said, noting the establishment of two special brigades tasked with “coordination and joint operations with the Peshmerga to prevent terrorist activity in areas of overlapping administration between Erbil and Baghdad.”