ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq's National Security Service (INSS) announced on Thursday that it dismantled a covert network providing financial and logistical support to individuals “linked to the remnants of an extremist organization,” in a coordinated security operation across four provinces.
INSS directorates in Kirkuk and Anbar arrested a woman in Fallujah district on terrorism-related charges.
“The accused was involved in the mission of distributing money and bonds inside al-Jadaa and al-Hol camps, providing an outlet to pass support to some families and elements associated with the entity,” the INSS said in a statement that did not name the extremist organization.
Al-Jadaa camp, located in Iraq’s northern Nineveh province, is a rehabilitation and reintegration center for Iraqi nationals repatriated from displacement camps in Syria, including the notorious al-Hol camp. It primarily houses Iraqi families with confirmed or suspected links to the Islamic State (ISIS), including women and children displaced during the war or related to ISIS members.
Al-Hol, located in northeast Syria, holds more than 40,000 people with perceived links to ISIS, most of them Iraqis and Syrians. The camp has been widely described as a breeding ground for extremism.
Efforts to repatriate Iraqi citizens from al-Hol have sparked backlash, particularly from tribal communities opposed to reintegrating individuals associated with ISIS, which carried out mass atrocities across Iraq from 2014 to 2017.
In a separate phase of the operation, National Security Service detachments in Diyala and Nineveh arrested a man known by the alias Abu Omar al-Qurshi after three days of field surveillance. He was reportedly involved in recruiting youth and had received technical and security training. Authorities said a judicial warrant had already been issued for his arrest.
Investigations revealed a network of relationships through which people continued to maintain connections with the “collapsed organization,” according to the INSS statement. The service said it would continue operations to monitor suspicious activity and prevent the group from reforming.
ISIS rose to power in 2014, seizing large swathes of Iraq and Syria and declaring a so-called “caliphate.” While it was territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019, it remains a security threat, carrying out sporadic attacks, bombings, and abductions, especially in desert areas and territories disputed between the federal government and the Kurdistan Region.
Separately, Iraqi counterterrorism forces arrested at least 10 suspected ISIS members in multiple operations across disputed areas, state media reported on Thursday.
