Islamic State emir arrested in Diyala: Military intelligence
A security checkpoint in Diyala
A brief statement said “the military intelligence department arrested in an operation a terrorist in Diyala.”
The arrested, according to the statement, “was the emir of the so-called Diyala State.” No further details were provided.
On Wednesday, Jabbar al-Maamouri, a senior commander at the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), was quoted saying that several senior leaders of the Islamic State remain in hiding at the Diyala-Salahuddin borders.
Joint troops managed to free several residential areas in Anbar, Salahuddin, Diyala and Kirkuk from Islamic State, which urged the militants to escape toward Al-Jazeera regions in those provinces.
PMFs liberated, earlier today, several villages as Iraqi troops launched operations to liberate Al-Jazeera regions located between Salahuddin, Nineveh and Anbar provinces.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi said during his weekly press briefing on Tuesday that his country has defeated Islamic State over the military level, but will declare final victory after desert areas are purged of militants.
Iraqi forces, backed by a U.S.-led coalition and paramilitary troops, have been fighting since October 2016 to retake territories Islamic State had occupied. Since then, forces took back the group’s former capital, Mosul, the town of Tal Afar, Kirkuk’s Hawija, and Anbar’s Annah, Rawa and Qaim.