Security Service: Senior ISIS Commander Arrested in Ukraine
A senior leader of ISIS group has been arrested in
Ukraine after an operation conducted with the help of Georgian police and the
CIA, the Ukrainian security services said Friday.
The Georgian national, known as Al Bara Shishani,
was previously deputy to top ISIS commander Omar al-Shishani ("Omar the
Chechen"), Ukraine's SBU security services said in a statement, according
to Agence France Presse.
Omar al-Shishani was the nom de guerre of a Georgian
Chechen militant who was killed in a US-coalition led strike in Syria in 2016.
Al Bara Shishani left Syria in 2016 for Turkey,
where he "continued to coordinate" ISIS activities, AFP quoted the
SBU as saying.
He arrived illegally in Ukraine last year, using a
false passport, and was arrested near his house in a Kiev suburb.
According to Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the
Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, Al Bara Shishani
was not a high-ranking ISIS figure but "a simple fighter".
The Georgian security service gave his real name as
Cezar Tokhosashvili and said he was wanted as "a member of a terrorist
organization".
