Confessions of captured ISIS commander led to identifying a mass grave in Fallujah: official

Shafaq News/ Iraqi security forces have arrested a senior ISIS leader, known by the alias "Abu Hiba," on suspicion of involvement in a massacre in Fallujah, the Iraqi Security Service said on Sunday.

A statement by the agency identified Abu Hiba as the former security chief for ISIS's "Wilayah al-Fallujah". He reportedly confessed to his role in the kidnapping and killing of victims found in a cemetery located in al-Saqlawiyah subdistrict, Fallujah.

A spokesperson for the National Security Service said the number of victims matched Abu Hiba's confession, with three bodies exhumed so far. 

Investigations are underway to identify the remaining victims.

Abu Hiba's arrest follows a months-long intelligence operation conducted by the ISS, which also uncovered the location of the mass grave, the spokesperson said.

The war on ISIS, between around 2013 and 2017, cost Iraq about 60,000 lives, according to Iraq Body Count, a war monitor. It also caused about $100 billion in damage, World Bank figures show. On January 4, 2014, ISIS took Fallujah, an hour's drive from Baghdad. Many accused the Iraqi government of doing little to change policies, widely exacerbating the crisis.

ISIS was also being super-charged by the raging civil war in Syria. This was highlighted in March 2013, when ISIS ambushed and killed nearly 50 Syrian soldiers in Iraq who were trying to flee an attack in Syria.

Since ISIS was driven out of all the territory it controlled in Iraq in 2017, Iraqi courts have handed down hundreds of death sentences and life prison terms to those convicted of membership in "a terrorist group". They include more than 500 foreign men and women found guilty of joining ISIS.