SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Iraqi intelligence agency said on Tuesday it had thwarted a “terrorist plot” in Kirkuk targeting members of security service and Hashid al-Shaabi.
The Agency of Intelligence and Federal Investigation said its units were able to arrest two “terrorists” in Kirkuk, who planned to assassinate members of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and security service in Kirkuk.
“The terrorists confessed … that they joined criminal gangs in 2020 belonging to Daesh leader,” the intelligence agency said in a statement, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State (ISIS).
“They were assigned to monitor some members of the Popular Mobilization Forces and the security services for the purpose of assassinating them,” it added.
The two suspects also confessed that they had recruited young men in Kirkuk, the agency stated.
Recently, Iraqi forces have stepped up efforts to detain ISIS militants in the provinces of Kirkuk, Saladin, Nineveh, Anbar and Baghdad. The security forces have detained and killed dozens of ISIS members in the past weeks.
In January, Iraqi forces foiled a “terrorist plot” that targeted Kirkuk governorate and arrested two suspected ISIS militants.
Iraq declared victory over Islamic State in December 2017 but the militants have regrouped in the Hamrin mountain range which extends into the northern provinces – an area described by officials as a “triangle of death”.
