ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraqi security forces have arrested the main suspect in the killing of two police officers in Baghdad during an anti-encroachment campaign, the Security Media Cell announced on Saturday.
Iraqi intelligence forces arrested the “killer” of the brigadier general and the officer who were shot dead in Baghdad, the Cell said in a statement shared on X, citing its chief, Saad Maan.
Maan identified the suspect to Rudaw as Mohammed Abdulmajid.
Brigadier General Hisham Muhammad Talla, director of the municipality police in Baghdad's Karkh district, and officer Khalid Abbas Lafta were shot dead by gunmen on Thursday while accompanying a municipal team tasked with removing illegal structures south of the Iraqi capital, according to the interior ministry.
Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice.
"We affirm that their pure blood shed upon the capital's soil will not be in vain," Zaidi affirmed soon after the incident, adding that "these treacherous attacks … will not deter the government from continuing its efforts to enforce the rule of law and hunt down those who tamper with the security of the nation and its citizens."
There are an estimated eight million unlicensed firearms in Iraq, where successive governments have sought to curb the proliferation of weapons and tighten controls on gun ownership amid recurring violence linked to criminal activity and tribal disputes.
The interior ministry said in early August that six million weapons had been registered across the country, setting an end-of-December deadline for all firearms to be recorded.
