Armed group leader arrested in Kirkuk

KIRKUK / IraqiNews.com: Security forces in Kirkuk arrested a leading member of an armed organization in central Kirkuk city on Sunday, a senior security official said. “Forces from the Kirkuk Districts’ Police Department (KDPD) and personnel from the Kurdish Asayesh forces captured Mahdi Ziad Ghareeb Ibraheem, a leading member of the so-called the 1920 Revolution Brigades, in central Kikruk,” KDPD chief Brig. Sarhad Qader told IraqiNews.com news agency. Ibraheem “is a former senior officer in the Iraqi intelligence during the former regime’s time,” he added. Asayesh or Asayish (Arabic for security) is a Kurdish organization, created in September 1993. It is referred to as an “intelligence agency”, “security force”,”security service”, “security police”, “secret service”, “secret police”, or just “Kurdish police”. Related to Barazani, it also acts under the command of the Kurdish National Assembly (parliament) and the Kurdistan Regional Government Kurdistan RegionG). The 1920 Revolution Brigades (the Kata’eb Thawrat al-Ishreen in Arabic) are armed factions that splintered from al-Qaeda network and joined the U.S.-backed Iraqi security forces to fight al-Qaeda. AmR (P)/SR 1