ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraqi intelligence forces on Sunday announced that they arrested a suspected Islamic State (ISIS) member inside a hotel in the capital Baghdad who sought to provide information about security forces in Nineveh province to the terror group.
“An intelligence and technical team was immediately formed to track down the whereabouts of the wanted person” after receiving instructions from Iraqi Interior Minister Abdul-Amir al-Shammari, and security forces “were able to ambush and arrest him in a Baghdad hotel,” said a statement by Iraq’s Federal Intelligence and Investigations Agency.
After confessing his affiliation with ISIS, the suspect was arrested in accordance with Article 4 of the anti-terror law, according to the statement.
Article 4 of the 2005 Iraqi anti-terrorism law stipulates that anyone who participates in committing a “terrorist act,” as defined by the law, shall be given the death sentence, with life imprisonment sentences being handed out to those found guilty of intentionally concealing a “terrorist act” or harboring a perpetrator of the act.
ISIS seized control of swathes of Iraqi land in 2014. The group was declared territorially defeated in 2017 but it continues to carry out bombings, hit-and-run attacks, and abductions across several provinces.
Thousands of people have been detained across Iraq since 2014 for suspected links to terrorist groups, including ISIS, while hundreds have been executed.
On Saturday, two suspected ISIS members were arrested in separate operations in Sulaimani, hours after Iraqi military intelligence forces in Kirkuk province arrested two more ISIS members in Kirkuk province.
Last week, Iraqi counterterrorism forces arrested five ISIS suspects in the northern Nineveh province.
.jpg&w=3840&q=75)
.jpeg&w=3840&q=75)