Iraqi-KRG counterterrorism cooperation increases in response to attacks
Joint operations between Iraqi Counterterrorism Services and their counterparts in some areas of the Kurdistan Region continue to target Islamic State cells, while other armed groups attack Erbil.
As discord at other levels grows more acute between the central government of Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), coordination in counterterrorism against alleged Islamic State (IS) operatives continues.
Gen. Yehia Rasoul, the spokesman for the commander-in-chief of Iraq’s armed forces, announced in a June 8 tweet that the Iraqi Counterterrorism Services (CTS) in collaboration with Asayish in the Sulaimaniyah area of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) had arrested three men from the “Takfiri gangs of IS.”
The Asayish are the security and primary intelligence services of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
Rasoul did not state exactly when or where these arrests took place, nor who the men arrested were or why they were seen as important targets. Requests for further information had not been answered by the time of publication. Photos of the operation showed the forces amid palm groves.
