ISIS member arrested in Baghdad restaurant

Shafaq News/ An ISIS terrorist was arrested inside a Baghdad restaurant on Tuesday.

A security source told Shafaq News Agency that forces from the Rusafa Police, in coordination with the Iraqi National Intelligence Service, carried out the arrest inside a local restaurant in the Adhamiyah district.

The source noted that the suspect, known by the alias "Abu Hajar", was wanted under an arrest warrant issued pursuant to Article 4/1 of the Terrorism Law for his involvement with ISIS. The detainee is a resident of Abu Al-Khaseeb in Basra governorate and has since been handed over to the requesting authorities.

Despite its territorial defeat in 2017, ISIS maintains a significant presence in Iraq through sleeper cells that engage in guerrilla warfare, assassinations, kidnappings, and extortion to destabilize the region. They blend into local populations, making them challenging to detect.

Iraqi security forces continually conduct operations to disrupt these cells. However, ongoing political and economic challenges, along with the cells' deep integration into communities, complicate these efforts.

Since ISIS was driven out of all the territory it controlled, Iraqi courts have handed down hundreds of death sentences and life prison terms to those convicted of membership in "a terrorist group".