ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Internal security forces (Asayish) in Sulaimani on Thursday announced the arrest of 30 Islamic State (ISIS) suspects who were found to be “spreading the extremist ideas of ISIS” on social media platforms.
The forces “received information about the presence of two groups in the Pishdar and Bitwen regions who were spreading extremist ideas on social media platforms and had planned to join the ranks of ISIS and become fighters for the terrorist group,” the Asayish said in a statement.
The suspects were placed under surveillance for 20 days and later arrested in several large-scale operations in December of last year.
Confessions aired by the Asayish on Facebook on Thursday detail that the suspects had intended to leave their hometowns to join the ranks of ISIS on several occasions but were told by the group to remain in the Kurdistan Region and spread their ideology there.
According to the confessions, they considered the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), as well as all civil servants receiving government salaries and religious clerics who they accused of spying for government agencies, as kuffar, or infidels (non-believers).
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, and hundreds have been executed.
In November, 55 ISIS suspects, including three emirs, were arrested in a five-month long operation in Sulaimani.
