“Over the recent period, the service used modern and advanced intelligence techniques that weakened the capabilities of ISIS, and we developed tactics to limit the guerrilla war that the enemy resorts to… we abandoned typical military operations,” Sabah al-Numan, spokesperson for the Iraqi CTS, said during a presser.
Numan said that a total of 135 suspected terrorists in senior leadership positions were arrested by the CTS, and 51 others were killed across 240 missions throughout the country in 2023.
The CTS cooperated with the counterterrorism units in Sulaimani and Erbil on 31 joint missions which resulted in the arrest of 32 suspected terrorists, according to the spokesperson.
Security forces (Asayish) in Sulaimani in November announced the arrest of 55 Islamic State (ISIS) suspects, including three emirs, in a five-month-long operation.
“We have focused and will continue to focus on [pursuing] ISIS leaders through sources and intelligence information,” he added.
ISIS seized control of swathes of Iraqi land in 2014 but it was declared territorially defeated in 2017 when Kurdish and Iraqi fighters supported by the US-led coalition drove them out of the stretches of land they seized years prior in a brazen offensive.
Despite its territorial defeat, the group continues to carry out bombings, hit-and-run attacks, and abductions across several Iraqi provinces, particularly those falling in the disputed areas stretching across the provinces of Kirkuk, Salahaddin, and Diyala.
Thousands of people have been detained across Iraq since 2014 for suspected links to terrorist groups, including ISIS, and hundreds have been executed.
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