ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Police in Erbil have arrested two suspects charged with killing an Iraqi army soldier in Baghdad earlier this week.

“After we were given information by the Baghdad police directorate on a murder case, and the suspects fled to the Kurdistan Region and Erbil, our teams from the Erbil police department immediately began investigations,” Karzan Salih, spokesperson of the Erbil police, told The New Region, adding police “managed to locate their whereabouts within a very short time, apprehending them.”

The two suspects, who cousins and both work as taxi drivers, on Saturday killed the soldier in broad daylight on a busy street in downtown Baghdad after they engaged in an altercation.

The suspects immediately fled the scene and managed to exit Baghdad.

After the suspects fled from the hands of the security forces in Baghdad, they first went to Mosul, then to Duhok, where they changed their vehicle, and from there to Erbil, Salih said, adding that the arrested “barbarically” killed the army soldier.

Baghdad security agencies had previously sent the two suspects’ names and addresses to the relevant authorities in the Kurdistan Region, he added.

The pair were subsequently arrested at a hotel in Erbil.

One of the suspects who was interviewed by The New Region while in police custody said they had a personal issue with the murdered soldier in question.

Authorities in Baghdad and Erbil have repeatedly stressed the importance of coordination between the security agencies of the Kurdistan Region and Iraq.

In a meeting last month in Erbil, Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani and Hamid al-Shatri, head of Iraq’s National Intelligence Service, stressed the need for increased coordination between Erbil and Baghdad in order to bolster security in the country.