SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Two Iraqis who went to Portugal as refugees were arrested in the Lisbon area on suspicion they were part of Islamic State (ISIS), police said Thursday.
The suspects, aged 32 and 34, are accused of “belonging to and supporting an international terrorist organization” and are also under investigation by Iraqi authorities, police said in a statement.
Both men “were part of an Islamic State militia in Iraq” and were accommodated in Portugal in 2017 after a spell in Greece as part of a refugee programme, a police source told AFP.
ISIS, which controlled large swathes of Iraqi territory between 2014 and 2017, was officially defeated by government troops backed by a U.S.-led Coalition forces.
But cells of the organization are still present in the country, especially in mountainous and desert areas, and claim occasional attacks.
(Esta Media Network/AFP)
