ISIS member arrested in Baghdad hotel for intelligence-gathering

Iraq’s interior ministry said Sunday an ISIS member had been arrested in a Baghdad hotel, accusing him of carrying out intelligence-gathering missions for the terrorist organisation.

The man, whose name was not given, was detained by “intelligence units charged with the security of tourist infrastructure,” a ministry press release said.

For all the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.

It said he was accused of supplying the extremists with “personal information about members of the security forces in Nineveh province” in northern Iraq.

The man had confessed to being an ISIS member, it added.

ISIS seized swathes of Iraq and neighbouring Syria in 2014, declaring a “caliphate” which they ruled with brutality before their defeat in late 2017 by Iraqi forces backed by a US-led military coalition.

However, extremists cells still stage sporadic attacks on the army and police, especially in rural and remote areas.

A United Nations report published in July said ISIS has “between 5,000 and 7,000 members across Iraq and the Syrian Arab Republic, most of whom are fighters.”

With AFP

Read more:

Iraq, Turkey foreign ministers discuss water, oil and the PKK

Libya captures ISIS leader behind 2018 deadly attacks in Tripoli

Syrian youth suspected in ISIS-linked bomb attack dies in Lebanon during raid: Report