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PMF arrests suspected ISIS member in Baghdad
BAGHDAD — Two suspected members of the Islamic State group were arrested this week in separate operations in Baghdad and Kirkuk, Iraqi authorities said Tuesday.
The Popular Mobilization Forces apprehended one suspect in Baghdad, finding him with a silenced pistol and an explosive device, according to the PMF’s General Directorate of Security and Discipline. The directorate said the suspect, identified as a resident of Anbar Governorate, was allegedly active in ISIS’s so-called Wilayat Anbar and sought to reactivate sleeper cells. He was planning “terrorist attacks” targeting security forces, the statement said.
In ISIS terminology, Wilayat Anbar refers to a self-declared administrative division covering Anbar Governorate. The group has used the term “wilayat,” meaning “province” in Arabic, to classify territories under its attempted “caliphate.”
Iraqi intelligence agents also arrested a suspected ISIS member on Monday who entered in Kirkuk who they say entered the country using falsified documents.
The Islamic State group seized major Iraqi cities like Mosul and Tikrit in 2014 and declared a “caliphate,” quickly gaining infamy for its brutality and attacks on minority communities. Although the militants were largely defeated in Iraq by 2017 through combined efforts of Iraqi forces, Kurdish Peshmerga and a U.S.-led coalition, remnants continue to wage an insurgency from remote areas.
