ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Twelve suspected members of the Islamic State (ISIS) were arrested in two separate operations in Nineveh province, Iraq's Security Media Cell announced on Saturday.
The men "admitted to participating in a number of terrorist operations against security forces and citizens" and threatened locals to join ISIS, it added, and were part of sleeper cells in different parts of the province.
Despite its territorial defeat in Iraq in December 2017, ISIS is still active throughout the country and often targets members of the security forces. Although attacks are often in territory disputed between Erbil and Baghdad, which includes Nineveh province, most take place further east, in Kirkuk and Diyala.
Almost 100 ISIS-linked families were repatriated from al-Hol camp in northeast Syria (Rojava) on Tuesday, sent to al-Jada camp near Qayyara in Nineveh. The move has sparked criticism, including from Yazidi survivors of ISIS captivity.
In its weekly propaganda newspaper al-Naba, released on Thursday, ISIS claimed it had carried out 16 attacks in Iraq from May 20 to 26, killing and injuring 33 people.
On Sunday, coalition spokesperson Col. Wayne Marotto said cooperation between Iraqi forces and the Kurdish Peshmerga will prevent ISIS remnants from taking advantage of the security vacuum present in the disputed territories.
“Daesh is not going to have the opportunity to travel freely through there because now it’s going to be closed,” he added, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS.
