“He [the perpetrator] was arrested by the Raparin security forces in Zanglan village of Pishdar, while was trying to escape across the Kurdistan Region's borders,” Sulaimani security forces said in a statement.
A shooting in Ranya on Sunday resulted in the death of one person and injured three others.
The deceased was identified as Zhinal Ibrahim Karim, 20, a member of Sulaimani’s counter-terrorism forces.
The other injured victims of the incident are 15, 17, and 20 years old.
The cause of the incident remains unknown, and an investigation is underway.
The Kurdistan Region has long maintained a lax firearms black market, where sniper rifles and machine guns are purchased in a region where an estimated 70 percent of the population own weapons.
Despite the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) efforts to regulate and reduce violent incidents, shootings remain problematic in the Region.
Last year, the KRG’s deadline for gun owners to register their weapons expired.
Article 15 of the Kurdistan Region’s Weapons Law, passed in 2022, stipulates that “any individual, who does not own a license, carries, sells, repairs or gives out a gun will be jailed for one to three years and fined two million to five million dinars (about $1,500 - $3,800).”
