ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – The Iraqi Directorate of Military Intelligence announced Wednesday the arrest of seven alleged members of the Islamic State (ISIS) in separate operations across three provinces.

“The operations resulted in the arrest of seven terrorists wanted by the Iraqi judiciary under the provisions of Article 4 of the Anti-Terrorism Law,” read a statement published on the directorate’s official Facebook page, adding that the operations were carried out in Anbar, Kirkuk and Nineveh.

“The terrorists were members of the [ISIS] terrorist gang across its various ranks and had previously participated in several terrorist attacks against Iraqi security forces,” the statement added.

Despite being territorially defeated in 2017, ISIS remains a threat to Iraqi security through hit and run operations and sleeper cells dispersed across the region.  Iraqi forces have intensified their efforts to eliminate these remnants, especially in provinces like Kirkuk, Anbar, and Nineveh, where ISIS cells remain active.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani earlier in March announced the killing of the Islamic State’s (ISIS’s) Deputy Caliph and so-called “Wali of Iraq and Syria.”
 
In a post on X, Sudani said that senior ISIS leader Abdallah Makki Muslih al-Rufay'i, nicknamed Abu Khadija, was killed in an operation of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service.

Iraqi security forces arrested over 500 terror suspects in 2024, according to data from the Iraqi National Security Service.