ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) captured a senior Islamic State (ISIS) executioner in Saladin province on Monday, according to defense officials.
The ISF conducted a “successful ambush” near the town of Dujail in southern Saladin, the Iraqi Security Media Cell said in a tweet.
“During a military operation, a unit from the Samarra Operations Command was able to arrest a terrorist who was previously working as an executions officer in ISIS,” the cell said.
“This operation comes after a tight ambush was placed on him on the highway near the Dujail district, and all legal measures have been taken against him,” it added.
Rudaw English has contacted defense officials to determine the identity of the ISIS executioner and details about his capture but is yet to receive a reply.
Kurdish security forces in Garmiyan announced the arrest of a local ISIS leader on April 3 who confessed to taking part in several attacks on Peshmerga forces in the Diyala towns of Jalawla and Qaratapa.
Mahmoud Khurshid, 68, also known as Abu Ali, was arrested by the Garmiyan Asayesh Forces on March 16 in the town of Rizgari, Kalar. His arrest was only announced in early April, however, after he made a confession.
“He has the blood of Peshmerga forces on his hands,” Brig. Gen. Nawshirwan Ahmed said at the time.
Despite Iraq’s coronavirus lockdown measures and the US-led coalition’s withdrawal from several bases across Iraq, the ISF has stepped up its operations against ISIS remnants active in the country’s remote deserts and mountains.
ISIS has tried to exploit the pandemic and the US drawdown to launch hit-and-run attacks on Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga positions in the disputed territories. The rival forces remain unwilling to cooperate on security.
Monday’s ISF operation in Saladin was launched to clear ISIS hideouts, bomb factories, and arms caches.
It began in the city of Samara before pushing east and southeast. The operation is ongoing, involving Border Patrol Units, Saladin Operation Command, Samara Operation Command, Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitias, Iraqi federal police units, and the Iraqi Air Force.
According to security media cell, bomb factories were discovered in Mateebja and elsewhere in the province.
Between January 1 and April 15, the ISF carried out 1,060 operations and killed 135 targets, defense ministry spokesperson Yehia Rasool said last week.
At least 88 ISF soldiers were killed and 174 wounded during these operations. During the same period, 82 civilians were killed and 120 injured.
In a phone call with Rudaw English on Wednesday, Rasool claimed all of the civilian casualties were the result of ISIS attacks and explosives.
“No civilians died due to Iraqi Security Forces military operations,” he said at the time.
Although the government announced the territorial defeat of ISIS in Iraq in December 2017, the group has resumed its earlier insurgency tactics of ambushes, kidnappings, executions of suspected informants, and extortion from vulnerable rural populations.
ISIS seized vast swathes of Syria and northern Iraq in the summer of 2014, including Mosul and other large Sunni-majority cities.
Baghdad called on the international community to form a coalition to help fight ISIS in Iraq. At the height of its power from 2014 to 2016, ISIS controlled an area roughly the size of Great Britain, spread across both Iraq and Syria.
ISIS insurgent activities have increased in recent weeks, with militants killing five soldiers and wounding three more in three separate incidents in Diyala and Kirkuk provinces.
ISIS militants also killed an Iraqi federal police officer at a checkpoint in Hawija, western Kirkuk on April 12, according to defense officials.
Defense Minister Najah al-Shammari vowed last week to “ramp up” the government’s anti-ISIS efforts, and stop the group’s attacks amid the coronavirus pandemic.
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