BAGHDAD — Five senior Islamic State officials have been captured, including a top aide to the group’s leader, in a complex cross-border sting carried out by Iraqi and American intelligence, two Iraqi officials said Wednesday.
The three-month operation, which tracked a group of senior Islamic State leaders who had been hiding in Syria and Turkey, represents a significant intelligence victory for the American-led coalition fighting the extremist group and underscores the strengthening relationship between Washington and Baghdad.
Two Iraqi intelligence officials said those captured included four Iraqis and one Syrian whose responsibilities included governing the Islamic State’s territory around Deir al-Zour, Syria, directing internal security and running the administrative body that oversees religious rulings.
Iraq’s external intelligence agency published a statement confirming the arrests, but did not mention any details of the role played by the Americans or the Turks. The two Iraqi intelligence officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details that had not been made public.
Iraqi state television broadcast images of four of the men arrested in the operation.
This is great news! Wouldn't it be awesome to rid our world of this evil?
05-17-2018, 09:40 AM (This post was last modified: 05-17-2018, 09:46 AM by BIAD.)
Quote:ISIS leader responsible for infamous execution of downed pilot who was burned alive in a cage is captured.
*ISIS leader Saddam al-Jamal is one of four captured using fake messages
*He was responsible for execution of Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kasasbeh in 2015
*Video of al-Kasasbeh being burned alive in a cage shocked the world
Caught: Saddam al-Jamal is one of the most senior ISIS commanders to be captured so
far and was responsible for the brutal execution of Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kasasbeh in 2015.
'The ISIS commander behind the brutal execution of a Jordanian pilot who was burned to death in a cage in 2015 is among the four senior ISIS leaders captured last week in Iraq. Saddam al-Jamal is one of the most senior ISIS commanders to be detained so far and was tipped as a future leader of the death cult.
He gained a reputation for brutality as an ISIS commander with a taste for personally beheading prisoners. The Jordanian security services believe he masterminded the brutal killing of downed pilot Muath al-Kasasbeh in 2015. Al-Kasasbeh was a Royal Jordanian Air Force pilot who was shot down in Raqqa, Syria, in December 2014.
A few weeks later, ISIS released a video online showing the 26-year-old being burned alive in a cage -in images that shocked the world. Al-Jamal has been accused of a series of atrocities, including taking part in a massacre in the Syrian province of Deir Ezzor in 2014 which killed 700 members of a tribe that rose up against ISIS.
He had previously been a commander in the Free Syrian Army and then leader of a western-allied 'moderate' Islamist group called Ahfab al-Rasoul. Al-Jamal is said to have ordered the execution of children, sometimes in front of their parents.
In 2014, Iraqi officials claimed that al-Jamal had murdered an entire family after the parents prevented the daughter from marrying him. Gruesome images released on social media show him gleefully posing with a collection of charred severed heads.
He was one of four leaders of ISIS captured by Iraqi security forces after they were lured from Syria to Iraq with fake Telegram messages. Iraqi officials used the mobile phone of already captured ISIS lieutenant Ismail al-Eithawi to send instructions via the app for the four other leaders to come to Iraq, where they were seized.
The encrypted app was officially named by ISIS as one of its favoured mobile messaging services in 2015 and has been regularly used by the terror group for private communication and to spread propaganda. Al-Eithawi, who also uses the alias Abu Zaid al-Iraqi, was captured in February by Turkish intelligence and handed over to the Iraqis.
Eithawi was a direct aide to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, responsible for fund transfers to the group's bank accounts in different countries. Apart from al-Eithawi and al-Jamal, the operation captured three field commanders: Syrian Mohamed al-Qadeer and two Iraqis, Omar al-Karbouli and Essam al-Zawbai...'
Pic 1. Pic 2.
Pic 3. Pic 4.
Pic 1. Field commander Mohamed al-Qadeer seen on Iraqi television.
Pic 2. Ismail Alwan al-Ethawi pictured in an Iraqi government release.
Pic 3. Field commander Omar Shehab El-Karboul seen on Iraqi television.
Pic 4. ISIS field commander Issam Abdel Kader al-Zawba'i from the Iraqi National Intelligence Service news release.
![[Image: 10iraq-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp]](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/05/10/world/10iraq/10iraq-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp)
![[Image: 636614232361039307-050918lville-gina-haspel-cia.jpg]](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/5c31da4236b0fa82aecd4663f95219e463dcc248/c=4-0-2997-2250&r=x513&c=680x510/local/-/media/2018/05/09/USATODAY/USATODAY/636614232361039307-050918lville-gina-haspel-cia.jpg)