“The Counter-Terrorism service carried out a series of operations that resulted in the arrest of four terrorists in different areas of the country,” Iraq’s Security Media Cell said in a statement.
Two suspects were arrested in the Kurdistan Region’s Sulaimani province in cooperation with Kurdish security forces (Asayish), the cell said, and the others were arrested in Salahaddin and Kirkuk provinces.
Since the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014, thousands of people have been detained across Iraq for suspected links to terrorist groups, including ISIS, while hundreds have been executed in extrajudicial processes – to the dismay of human rights organizations.
ISIS seized control of swathes of Iraqi land in 2014. The group was declared territorially defeated in 2017 but it still continues to carry out abductions, hit-and-run attacks, and bombings.
The militants have taken shelter in a security vacuum disputed between the Iraqi federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which stretches across the provinces of Kirkuk, Salahaddin, Nineveh, and Diyala.
Iraqi and Kurdish security forces frequently carry out joint anti-terror operations.
