Iraq
Syrian security forces affiliated with the new leadership in Damascus. Photo: Syria's Interior Ministry
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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A senior Iraqi commander from the Islamic State (ISIS) was captured in Syria, accused of being responsible for foreign fighters who joined the group and plotting terrorist attacks, state media reported.
Syrian intelligence services confirmed the capture of the senior ISIS commander who goes by the nom de guerre Abu al-Harith al-Iraqi, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported on Saturday.
The ISIS suspect filled important positions in Iraq, was responsible for “overseeing the foreign fighters dossier,” and “served as the deputy responsible for preparing terrorist attacks,” SANA reported, citing an intelligence source.
Iraqi is accused of plotting the assassination of a Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) leader, Maysar al-Jubouri. He is also the suspected leader of an ISIS cell that was captured on January 11 while planning an attack on Sayyida Zainab shrine - a prominent mausoleum for Shiite Muslims in the vicinity of Damascus.
HTS was founded in 2011 under the name Jabhat al-Nusra as a direct affiliate of al-Qaeda. The group’s leader Ahmed al-Sharaa later publicly broke ranks with al-Qaeda, dissolved Jabhat al-Nusra and set up a new organisation, which took the name HTS when it merged with several other similar groups a year later.
In December, HTS led a coalition of opposition groups that toppled the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad who fled to Russia with his family. The leader of HTS, Sharaa, was on January 29 appointed interim president of Syria.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein on Saturday announced that Baghdad has started repatriating a group of "terrorists” who were being held in Syria, transferring them to Iraqi prisons. Hussein also expressed "concern" regarding the activities of "ISIS terrorist groups within Syria.”
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