“Five years after the terrorist bombing of Karrada, our brave forces succeeded in capturing the terrorist Ghazwan Alzawbaee in a complex intelligence operation outside the country,” Mustafa al-Kadhimi, Iraqi prime minister and the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, said in a tweet.
“He is the primary culprit behind the Karrada atrocity and many others,” he added.
Karrada, a commercial hub on the east bank of the Tigris River, had been the target of regular attacks since the US-led invasion in 2003. The district saw its deadliest explosion in July 2016, which killed over 250 people and wounded about 200 others. The attack was claimed by the Islamic State (ISIS) group.
After seizing swathes of the country in the summer of 2014, the terror group was announced territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017, but continues to launch attacks against both civilians and members of the security forces, particularly in Iraq's northern provinces and territory disputed between Baghdad and Erbil.
Spokesperson for the commander-in-chief, Yehia Rasool, said he is “one of the most wanted persons by the Iraqi judiciary, as this terrorist carried out many criminal operations against the Iraqi people and the Iraqi security forces.”
