Iraqi national security officials on Saturday said they arrested the top-ranking Islamic State figure in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Azad Shakhi, the so-called emir of the Kurdistan faction of Islamic State, which is also known as IS, ISIS or ISIL, was detained in Kirkuk province alongside six other suspected terrorists, one of whom blew himself up amid the siege on their hideout.
"The detainees were working underground and were found and arrested after a thorough investigation and gathering information," Colonel Salam Abdulkhaliq, spokesman for the Kurdistan Regional Security Agency, told VOA's Kurdish Service.
Regional security officials with knowledge of the investigation said the group had been planning to target security figures and government institutions, according to regional news outlets.
"The ISIS network that was arrested had links to the ISIS in Karadag and other parts of the region, they have committed terrorist acts in the past," a senior security source in Kirkuk, who did not want to be named, told VOA.
The source also said other members of the Kirkuk sleeper cell had been detained in recent days, and that "another group of ISIS fighters were killed in an air strike in Rashad district of western Kirkuk last night."
Officials said Shakhi, a resident of the Latif area of Shorjay village in Kirkuk, had previously been listed as an active member of ISIS.
This story originated in VOA's Kurdish Service.
