The attacker blew himself up Friday while Iraqi security forces tried to arrest him in western Iraq near the Syrian border, according to an Iraqi security official speaking on condition of anonymity.
The official said the raid was conducted in the al-Khaseem area in Qaim district, which borders Syria, and that “preliminary information” confirmed no members of the security forces were killed. He said two security personnel were injured and transferred for medical treatment.
Iraq’s National Security Agency said in a statement that its members besieged a hideout of an Islamic State group security official and two of his bodyguards, according to the report. The agency said that one bodyguard ignited his explosives belt and was killed, while it did not provide additional details.
The account described the blast as part of an arrest attempt that unfolded during the raid, with the attacker detonating the belt as security forces moved in.
The incident came as Islamic State’s remaining networks continue to pose a threat in the region. The report said the group once controlled large parts of Syria and Iraq and declared a caliphate in 2014, but it was defeated on the battlefield in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019.
Despite those defeats, the report said Islamic State sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in both countries, including in Syria where the United States blamed Islamic State for an attack in December that killed two U.S. service members and an American civilian.
The report also said U.S. and Iraqi authorities began in January transferring hundreds of the nearly 9,000 Islamic State members held in jails run by the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in northeast Syria to Iraq, where Iraqi authorities plan to prosecute them.