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Security Service: Senior ISIS Commander Arrested in Ukraine

Armed men in masks, representing Ukrainian special forces, stand guard outside the regional administration building in Kharkiv, April 8, 2014. REUTERS/Olga Ivashchenko
Armed men in masks, representing Ukrainian special forces, stand guard outside the regional administration building in Kharkiv, April 8, 2014. REUTERS/Olga Ivashchenko
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Security Service: Senior ISIS Commander Arrested in Ukraine

Armed men in masks, representing Ukrainian special forces, stand guard outside the regional administration building in Kharkiv, April 8, 2014. REUTERS/Olga Ivashchenko
Armed men in masks, representing Ukrainian special forces, stand guard outside the regional administration building in Kharkiv, April 8, 2014. REUTERS/Olga Ivashchenko

A senior leader of ISIS group has been arrested in Ukraine after an operation conducted with the help of Georgian police and the CIA, the Ukrainian security services said Friday.

The Georgian national, known as Al Bara Shishani, was previously deputy to top ISIS commander Omar al-Shishani ("Omar the Chechen"), Ukraine's SBU security services said in a statement, according to Agence France Presse.

Omar al-Shishani was the nom de guerre of a Georgian Chechen militant who was killed in a US-coalition led strike in Syria in 2016.

Al Bara Shishani left Syria in 2016 for Turkey, where he "continued to coordinate" ISIS activities, AFP quoted the SBU as saying.

He arrived illegally in Ukraine last year, using a false passport, and was arrested near his house in a Kiev suburb.

According to Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, Al Bara Shishani was not a high-ranking ISIS figure but "a simple fighter".

The Georgian security service gave his real name as Cezar Tokhosashvili and said he was wanted as "a member of a terrorist organization".

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Israel Launches Communications Satellite from Florida

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft lifts off at Launch Complex 39A at NASA Kennedy Space Center before the launch of Axiom Space Axiom Mission on June 25, 2025, in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/Getty Images/AFP
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft lifts off at Launch Complex 39A at NASA Kennedy Space Center before the launch of Axiom Space Axiom Mission on June 25, 2025, in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/Getty Images/AFP
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Israel Launches Communications Satellite from Florida

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft lifts off at Launch Complex 39A at NASA Kennedy Space Center before the launch of Axiom Space Axiom Mission on June 25, 2025, in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/Getty Images/AFP
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft lifts off at Launch Complex 39A at NASA Kennedy Space Center before the launch of Axiom Space Axiom Mission on June 25, 2025, in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/Getty Images/AFP

Israel on Sunday said it had launched a new national communications satellite on board a SpaceX rocket from the United States.

The Dror 1 satellite was blasted into orbit on a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral in Florida, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and the foreign ministry said.

"This $200 million 'smartphone in space' will power Israel's strategic and civilian communications for 15 years," the ministry wrote on X.

Accompanying video footage showed the reusable, two-stage rocket lift off into the night sky. SpaceX said the launch happened at 1:04 am in Florida (0504 GMT Sunday).

IAI, which called the launch "a historic leap for Israeli space technology", said when it announced the project to develop and build Dror 1 that it was "the most advanced communication satellite ever built in Israel".

In September 2016, an unmanned Falcon 9 rocket exploded during a test in Florida, destroying Israel's Amos-6 communications satellite, which was estimated to have cost between $200 and 300 million.