Iraqi intelligence arrest forgery cell registering IS deaths as victims
Documents seized from Islamic State offices show militants demanding repatriation citing sickness .
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi military intelligence services said Tuesday it apprehended a criminal cell which registered dead Islamic State militants as regular deaths and victims of the group.
Mawazin News quoted the service’s statement saying that, based on accurate intelligence information, military troops apprehended the eight-member rigging cell in al-Resala district in the city of Fallujah.
According to the statement, the suspects would forge documents to register dead and wounded Islamic State members as victims of terrorism, and therefore receive compensations allocated to victims.
In their possession, the forces, said the statement, found several unoriginal stamps and fake documents, besides amounts of money in Iraqi and U.S. currencies.
Iraq declared victory over Islamic State militants and the recapture of territories under the extremist group’s control late 2017, ending a four-year war that left thousands of civilians and security members dead and wounded.
There had been instances where Iraqi forces, upon evacuating civilians from battlegrounds, would apprehend IS members hiding among evacuees.