ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – In an operation that was coordinated with the international anti-ISIS coalition, the Iraqi counter-terrorism forces killed on Sunday a senior ranking Islamic State member in Diyala province, the service said.
The alleged terrorist was Nahad al-Karwi, going by the nom de guerre Abu Idris, born in the town of Jalawla of the western province of Diyala, the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (ICTS) said in a statement.
Abu Idris is the head of “general security” for the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed Diyala Wilayat (province), ICTS claimed, adding that he was “responsible for planning and implementing terrorist operations within Kirkuk and Diyala.”
He was involved in several terrorist acts in Khanaqin, Qara Tapa, and his hometown of Jalawla, as well as kidnappings on Baghdad–Kirkuk road and confrontations with Iraq’s security apparatus, the statement added.
The Iraqi security media cell said earlier that the security forces had killed Abu Idris on Hamrin Mountains, where efforts are ongoing to rid the arid and rugged mountain range of Islamic State elements.
Terrorists have long plagued such remote areas, where security forces experience difficulty monitoring their activities, using them as bases to plan and conduct attacks in nearby civilian settlements, towns, and cities.
On Friday, the interior ministry announced that counterterrorism forces had killed 12 “terrorists” in a remote area of southwestern Kirkuk province, alleging four of them were high ranking members of an unnamed armed group.
Those killed were part of a “criminal group” that was behind a bombing which employed the use of an “improvised explosive device against security detachments in the district in the past two days.” Though the statement did not name the group to which the militants belonged, the area where the counterterrorism operation had taken place is a known Islamic State hotbed.
Despite such concerted efforts, the Islamic State remains active and carries out regular attacks in surrounding areas, especially in villages and out-of-the-way regions where security forces have difficulty monitoring its fighter’s movements.
Just 80 kilometers north of Mount Hamrin, locals living at the foot of Mount Qarachokh recently told Kurdistan 24 that the group remains alive in their area, regularly assaulting villages and often extorting so-called “taxes“ from residents, prompting some to leave their homes to seek refuge northward in the Kurdistan Region.
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany