Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service has operated to destroy several ISIL hideouts across the country and imprison an ISIL terrorist near Baghdad. Iraqi security forces eliminated several ISIL hideouts during a procedure in the provinces of Diyala and Saladin, as well as the Tarmiyah region.

In this operation, a terrorist was confined by the Iraqi forces in the Abu Ghraib area in the west of Baghdad. ISIL, which struck Iraq on June 7, 2014, and managed to apprehend about 45% of the country’s territory for a short period of time, was conquered in November 2017; However, since then, the remanent members of the terrorist group have present and working in Iraq and Syria and carry out terrorist raids from time to time.

Iraqi security forces keep digging, clearing, and chasing ISIL across the land to make sure that ISIL and its fugitive elements do not re-emerge. Moreover, a month ago the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) announced that Iraqi security forces killed 139 ISIS terrorists in the past two years.

The representative of the CTS, Sabah Al-Numan, told the Iraqi News Agency (INA) that Iraqi security forces, in light of the directives of the Commander-in-Chief of the Iraqi Armed Forces, will continue to encounter ISIS terrorists and curb their activities. ISIS terrorists hide in some desert areas and mountain runs away from cities and suburbs, according to Al-Numan. According to the Iraqi security officer, 75 terrorists were killed in 2022, 51 in 2023, and 13 in 2024 to this point.  

UN experts stated in a report issued last August that the ISIS group still controls between 5,000 and 7,000 members across its ex-strongholds in Syria and Iraq, according to the AP.

The report noted that during the first half of 2023, the threat posed by ISIS remained mostly increased in conflict zones and low in non-conflict areas.

The information that is directed to the UN Security Council illustrates that the overall situation is dynamic, and despite substantial losses in the group’s leadership and reduced activity in Syria and Iraq, the risk of its revival remains. Iraq reported in late 2017 the liberation of all its territories from the grasp of ISIS, but the authorities are constantly undertaking security operations to pursue remnants of the terrorist body that carries out attacks from time to time in the country.