Iraq Arrests 6 ‘Prominent’ Islamic State Members, Destroys Hideouts in Kirkuk

Iraq has arrested six “prominent members” of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist organization, officials said on Monday. At least two of them were captured in the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan. The IS members were arrested in a joint operation by the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service and Asayish, a security and intelligence agency operating in Iraqi Kurdistan, Yahia Rasoul, spokesperson for the commander-in-chief of the Iraqi forces, said in a statement. The statement did not include details of the time and place of the arrests but identified two of the detainees as Ahmed Saleh and Bahauddin Zubar. Kurdistan’s regional counterterrorism service said in a statement that the regional government handed over IS fighters, including Saleh and Zubar, to the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service. The Security Media Cell affiliated with Iraq’s armed forces said in a tweet that the Iraqi Air Force, acting on intelligence reports from the Interior Ministry, launched airstrikes Monday targeting IS fighters and destroyed four of their hideouts in the northern province of Kirkuk.