ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s intelligence service announced on Monday that it has dismantled a major Islamic State (ISIS) financing network that was planning “terrorist attacks” in European countries and against Iraqi interests abroad. In a statement on X, the Iraqi National Intelligence Service (INIS) said that “through an exceptional and qualitative cross-border effort, and under the supervision of [Iraq’s] Supreme Judicial Council,” it was able to dismantle the network “responsible for smuggling terrorists across a number of countries around the world to support ISIS.” The agency added that arrests “have been made in several West African countries” following extensive surveillance of the network’s “movements and communications” with “other networks inside and outside Iraq.” INIS further added that these networks were involved in financing ISIS and were “plotting terrorist attacks in European countries and against Iraqi interests overseas." ISIS rose to power in 2014 when it seized large swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria in a brazen offensive. The group declared a so-called “caliphate” spanning both countries, dubbing Mosul - the capital of Iraq’s northern Nineveh province - as the capital of its self-proclaimed caliphate. Although ISIS was territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria by 2019, it continues to pose security risks and remains active through hit-and-run attacks, kidnappings and bombings. INIS noted on Monday, that the latest effort is “a continuation of a qualitative operation” it had carried out in Kirkuk in 2023, which targeted a network “responsible for financing ISIS cells.” The agency concluded its statement by reaffirming its commitment to rooting out ISIS remnants and countering the group’s “malicious plans” aimed at undermining Iraq’s national security.
