14 Years After Zarqawi’s Assassination, Iraq Arrests One of his Aides

Iraqi security forces attack ISIS militants, in western Mosul, Iraq on March 6, 2017. (Khalid Mohammed  AP)
Iraqi security forces attack ISIS militants, in western Mosul, Iraq on March 6, 2017. (Khalid Mohammed AP)
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14 Years After Zarqawi’s Assassination, Iraq Arrests One of his Aides

Iraqi security forces attack ISIS militants, in western Mosul, Iraq on March 6, 2017. (Khalid Mohammed  AP)
Iraqi security forces attack ISIS militants, in western Mosul, Iraq on March 6, 2017. (Khalid Mohammed AP)

Iraq’s Intelligence announced on Tuesday that it had detained an aide of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former al-Qaeda leader who was killed in an American raid near the city of Baquba in Diyala Province, northeast of Baghdad, in 2006.

In a statement, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said, “The Iraqi National Intelligence service, represented by the Ministry of Interior’s Federal Investigation and Intelligence Agency, was able to apprehend one of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s close associates in the al-Rafak neighborhood in Baghdad.”

The statement said “the arrest was made by a recently formed taskforce that followed him from the governorate of Diyala to Baghdad, where an ambush was set up to apprehend him.”

After preliminary interrogation, Zarqawi’s aide confessed to his affiliation with criminal mobs, and said that he had contributed to several terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda and ISIS, it added.

Al-Qaeda was active, especially in the center and north of the country, between 2005 and 2014.

Abu Omar al-Baghdadi took over the leadership after al-Zarqawi before being killed in a joint Iraqi-American operation in 2011.

Between 2005 and 2007, many areas in Diyala and other northern and western governorates came under the terrorist organization's control amid sectarian violence.

Zarqawi, who is of Jordanian origin, had established the so-called Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (the Organization of Monotheism and Jihad) in the 1990s before he pledged his allegiance to Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, in 2004.

He led training camps in Afghanistan before moving to Iraq and gaining notoriety for his role in an array of attacks during the Iraq war.



ISIS Kills Five Kurdish Fighters in Eastern Syria

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters sit on a vehicle in the north of Raqqa city, Syria. (Reuters file)
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters sit on a vehicle in the north of Raqqa city, Syria. (Reuters file)
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ISIS Kills Five Kurdish Fighters in Eastern Syria

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters sit on a vehicle in the north of Raqqa city, Syria. (Reuters file)
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters sit on a vehicle in the north of Raqqa city, Syria. (Reuters file)

The ISIS militant group said on Monday it killed five Kurdish fighters in an attack in eastern Syria's Deir Ezzor, according to the group's news agency.

The spokesperson for Syria's Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces Farhad Shami confirmed to Reuters that five members were killed in the attack which he described as "one of deadliest" against the group in a while.

Deir Ezzor city was captured by the ISIS group in 2014, but the Syrian army retook it in 2017.

Former ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a so-called “caliphate” over a quarter of Syria and Iraq in 2014 before he was killed in a raid by US special forces in northwest Syria in 2019 as the group collapsed.

It has been recently trying to stage a comeback in the Middle East, the West and Asia.