ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) on Saturday said it arrested a suspect accused of being involved in the Camp Speicher massacre, where Islamic State (ISIS) fighters killed almost 2,000 Iraqi Air Force cadets.

The PMF said it “apprehended one of the individuals involved in the Speicher crime in Salahaddin province.”

“This operation is part of the ongoing efforts to pursue those involved in terrorist crimes and bring them to justice,” it added.

In June 2014, ISIS fighters massacred almost 2,000 Iraqi Air Force cadets at Speicher military base near Tikrit, the overwhelming majority of whom were Shiite Muslims.

In September, the Iraqi National Intelligence Service repatriated an individual suspected of involvement in the killings and other terrorist crimes from Germany, with the accused having been resident in Salahaddin province at the time.

In June, Speicher Martyrs Commemoration Committee Chairman Moeen al-Kadhimi said authorities have recovered the remains of 1,250 victims since the liberation of Tikrit and returned them to their families following DNA testing.

Kadhimi said efforts to pursue those responsible for the massacre led to the arrest of more than 150 suspects.

Hundreds suspected of participating in the massacre have been arrested, and dozens have already been executed.

The mass murder became a symbol of ISIS brutality, as they abducted unarmed students from the Air Force College to the presidential palaces overlooking the Tigris River and shot them before throwing their bodies into the river.

The United Nations has also described the event as a genocidal crime.