ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Iraq’s Counter-Terrorism Service (ICTS) on Sunday announced the arrest of three suspected Islamic State (ISIS) members in Sulaimani province, it said in a statement.

The service said that two of the suspects had entered the province on Sunday, while the third was a resident of it.

“This operation demonstrates the effectiveness of the CTS's intelligence efforts and the speed with which they respond to the movements of wanted individuals, thereby preventing them from establishing a foothold or reorganizing their activities within the country,” the ICTS said.

Earlier in September, Kurdistan Region security forces (Asayish) said they arrested 22 members of the group, including a senior member, and seized “a large quantity” of weapons during a four-day operation in Sulaimani and Halabja provinces.

Asayish said all those arrested “are of Kurdish ethnicity” and that “the group had intended to carry out several terrorist acts in mid-September.”

ISIS seized large swathes of Iraqi and Syrian territory in 2014, announcing its so-called “caliphate” in the Iraqi city of Mosul after a blistering offensive. The jihadists were territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017 with the help of a US-led global coalition.

Iraqi and Kurdish counterterrorism and security forces often launch operations in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq to arrest remnants of the extremist group that operate through sleeper cells and employ hit-and-run tactics across the country.