Zaid Ibrahim Ali, known as “Zaid al-Muharib,” who Iraqi intelligence says was arrested in Syria on extortion and defamation charges.
Intelligence service says wanted man arrested in Syria and returned
BAGHDAD — The National Intelligence Service said it had arrested Zaid Ibrahim Ali, known as Zaid al-Muharib, in Syria on extortion and defamation charges and brought him to Iraq, where he has been handed to the judiciary.
He was wanted in several extortion and defamation cases and subject to multiple arrest warrants, the service said, and the arrest was carried out with Syrian security authorities.
Iraqi agencies have detained wanted men in Syria before. An airborne force from the Interior Ministry’s Falcon Intelligence Cell arrested two men in northeastern Syria in December 2025 after more than five months of monitoring, in a case involving the movement of weapons and fighters from camps in Syria toward Iraq, with technical support from the international coalition. In January this year a joint operation against a Captagon trafficking network produced arrests on both sides of the border, including two suspects in Syria, and the seizure of about 2.5 million pills.