Iraq’s Counter‑Terrorism Service (CTS) announced Sunday that its forces arrested three Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists in intelligence‑driven raids carried out in Anbar and Sulaymaniyah provinces, the Xinhua news agency reported.
According to the CTS statement, two of the suspects were detained in Anbar, the western province that once served as a major stronghold for the terrorist organization.
One of the detainees had served as a security operative for Islamic State and was involved in bomb‑making workshops, the statement said.
The third suspect was apprehended in Sulaymaniyah, in Iraq’s semi‑autonomous Kurdish region, in coordination with Kurdish security forces.
ISIS overran large swathes of Syria and neighboring Iraq in 2014, proclaiming a "caliphate" in land it controlled.
Several military offensives, including those backed by the US-led international coalition, have since seen ISIS lose most areas it once controlled, including the loss of their de facto capital in Raqqa, Syria.
However, ISIS sleeper cells remain in the area and continue to carry out deadly attacks in Syria and Iraq.
Iraqi authorities regularly report the arrest of suspected ISIS members as part of ongoing counter‑terrorism operations.
In August of 2023, UN experts said that ISIS still commands between 5,000 and 7,000 members across its former stronghold in Syria and Iraq and its fighters pose the most serious terrorist threat in Afghanistan.
This past summer, Iraq eliminated multiple ISIS terrorists in a pair of targeted airstrikes in the same area.
Two weeks later, Iraqi security forces targeted an ISIS hideout in a precision airstrike, eliminating at least three terrorists.