Pre-Eid terror plot foiled, Iraqi Kurdistan counter-terror force says

Iraqi Kurdistan's counter-terror service said on Tuesday that it foiled an attack on the city of Erbil, meant to take place before the Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Adha next week.

The Kurdistan Counter Terrorism Group (CTG) released video confessions from what it claimed were suspected Islamic State (IS) group members.

In the video, the five suspects, all originally from western Iraq's Anbar province, said the group was planning to attack administrative and security force buildings in Erbil, and had conducted visits to potential sites of attack.

Suicide belts were to be used in the attack, the suspects said.

IS was declared territorially defeated in Iraq in December 2017. However, remnants of the group have been a thorn in the side of the Iraqi security forces and the Kurdish Peshmerga ever since, particularly in territories claimed by Erbil and Baghdad, where security is weak.

The extremist group have been conducting attacks on energy infrastructure in the disputed areas and elsewhere in northern Iraq in ​recent months, disrupting electricity supplies desperately needed in the scorching summer heat.

Earlier this month, the CTG said it had foiled a plot to attack a security headquarters in Iraqi Kurdistan, with the aim of freeing IS prisoners held there.

A security official in Iraqi Kurdistan told The New Arab's Arabic-language service that the security forces have recently stepped up their counter-terror operations.