Iraqi Ministry of Interior announced on Wednesday apprehending a hideout belonging to the Islamic State group, south of Kirkuk, while arrested a terrorist who was hiding inside the hideout, and found detonators and explosive devices inside the hideout.
The ministry’s Spokesman Major General Saad Maan said in a press statement that the detachments of the Federal Police based on the confessions of one of the arrested defendants, managed to seize a hideout of the ISIS terrorist group in Wadi al-Shay, where one of terrorists was arrested, while hiding inside the hideout.
Maan added that three explosive devices, a booby-trapped gas cylinder, a 120-mm grenade, a rocket launcher, two bombs, 50-meter-long detonating wires, a detonating fuse and five detonators were found inside the hideout.
Iraq declared the collapse of Islamic State’s territorial influence 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.
IS declared a self-styled “caliphate” in a third of Iraq and neighboring Syria in 2014. A government campaign, backed by a U.S.-led international coalition and paramilitary forces, was launched in 2016 to retake IS-held regions, managing to retake all havens, most notably the city of Mosul, the group’s previously proclaimed capital.