Iraqi forces announce killing of ISIS security chief in Nineveh
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Iraqi security forces announced on Thursday that they had killed a senior Islamic State official in the northern province of Nineveh.
“As part of its intensifying operational & intelligence efforts, Iraq’s Al-Jazirah Operations Command killed Abd al-Ghafour Abdallah Karmoush, the Daesh [Islamic State] security official for ‘Wilayat Al-Jazirah’ and his aide who was wearing a suicide vest in Jabal Al-Shoor west of Nineveh,” said Iraqi military spokesman General Yahya Rasool.
According to a statement, Karmoush and the aide were ambushed by a joint army intelligence operation at 5:45 p.m.
Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq, was a key stronghold of the Islamic State in the country following the group's emergence in 2014. After taking control of the northern city, the jihadist group named it as the Iraqi capital of its self-proclaimed caliphate.
The operations are the latest developments in the campaign by Iraqi forces and Iran-backed Hashd al-Shaabi against Islamic State remnants and sleeper cells in the area after a string of recent insurgent attacks in areas liberated from the militant group.
Though Iraq declared a military victory against the group in late 2017, those loyal to its extremist ideology continue to launch insurgent attacks, ambushes, kidnappings, and explosions across the country, mainly in the provinces of Nineveh, Kirkuk, Diyala, Salahuddin, and Anbar.
Over the past year, several different populations of civilians have evacuated dozens of villages after repeatedly warning Iraqi authorities of the Islamic State's increasing presence and uptick of activity in their areas.
On April 24, Iraqi security forces announced the killing of a would-be suicide bomber in Mosul and the Ministry of Interior said police forces also captured 17 Islamic State members in a nearby town.
In mid-February, Iraqi troops captured an Islamic State “spy” working for the militant group in the western province of Anbar. Elsewhere, security forces arrested another suspected Islamic State member inside the al-Jadah camp in the town of Qayyara, about 60 kilometers south of Mosul.
Editing by John J. Catherine
