Iraqi security forces seize ISIS hideout, arrest terrorist in Kirkuk
Members of the Iraqi Federal Police forces stand inside an underground tunnel dug by Islamic State militants south of western Mosul’s Old City.
Kirkuk (IraqiNews) Iraqi Ministry of Interior announced on Wednesday apprehending a hideout belonging to the Islamic State group, south of Kirkuk, while arrested a terrorist who was hiding inside the hideout, and found detonators and explosive devices inside the hideout.
The ministry’s Spokesman Major General Saad Maan said in a press statement that the detachments of the Federal Police based on the confessions of one of the arrested defendants, managed to seize a hideout of the ISIS terrorist group in Wadi al-Shay, where one of terrorists was arrested, while hiding inside the hideout.
Maan added that three explosive devices, a booby-trapped gas cylinder, a 120-mm grenade, a rocket launcher, two bombs, 50-meter-long detonating wires, a detonating fuse and five detonators were found inside the hideout.
Iraq declared the collapse of Islamic State’s territorial influence in November 2017 with the recapture of Rawa, a city on Anbar’s western borders with Syria, which was the group’s last bastion in Iraq.
IS declared a self-styled “caliphate” in a third of Iraq and neighboring Syria in 2014. A government campaign, backed by a U.S.-led international coalition and paramilitary forces, was launched in 2016 to retake IS-held regions, managing to retake all havens, most notably the city of Mosul, the group’s previously proclaimed capital.