Iraqi troops arrest four Islamic State militants in Mosul

Four Islamic State militants were arrested Tuesday in Mosul city for their involvement in fighting against security forces, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said.

“Acting on judicial arrest warrants, a Nineveh police force arrested four members of the Islamic State terrorist group in the western side of Mosul,” Maj. Gen. Saad Maan, the ministry’s spokesman, told Arabic-language Ayn Al-Iraq website.

He added that one of the militants worked for the Islamic State religious police (al-Hisbah), while the others were members of the group’s Jund (soldiers) Diwan.

The trio confessed that they took part in fighting against security forces in the eastern and western sides of Mosul, the spokesman said.

Former Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi announced in July 2017 liberation of the second largest Iraqi city of Mosul from IS militants, who had captured it in 2014.

More than 25,000 militants were killed throughout the campaign, which started in October 2016.

The campaign was backed by paramilitary troops and a U.S.-led international coalition.

Iraq declared the collapse of Islamic State’s territorial influence in Iraq in November 2017 with the recapture of Rawa, a city on Anbar’s western borders with Syria, which was the group’s last bastion in Iraq.

Source: Iraqi News