ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Two suspected Islamic State (ISIS) members and two police officers were killed during a raid near Anbar province’s Falluja district, Iraqi police announced on Monday.
Ahmed al-Mashhadani, media director of Anbar police told Rudaw that a unit of Iraq’s national security service raided a house in Falluja’s Amiriya subdistrict, where they found “two known ISIS members hiding”.
Clashes erupted between the police forces and the gunmen, Mashhadani said, resulting in the killing of two police officers, as well as the two ISIS suspects.
Rumors circulated on Iraqi social media that the two suspects broke out of prisons in Syria and crossed Iraqi borders into Anbar. Mashhadani denied the rumors, stating that the suspects were from the area and are "well known."
ISIS seized control of swathes of territory in northern and central Iraq in 2014. But their so-called caliphate was brought to an end in 2017 when Iraqi and Kurdish fighters, supported by a United States-led international coalition, reclaimed territory.
Despite its territorial defeat, ISIS has continued to pose a security threat in Iraq through hit-and-run attacks, bombings, and abductions, particularly in the disputed territories that stretch across several provinces.
