A man detonates explosive belt during arrest attempt in Iraq, injuring 2 security members

BAGHDAD (AP) — A man wearing an explosives belt blew himself up Friday while a security force was trying to arrest him in western Iraq near the Syrian border, killing himself and wounding two security members, an Iraqi security official said.

The raid was being conducted in the al-Khaseem area in Qaim district that borders Syria, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

The official added that “preliminary information” confirms that no members of the security forces were killed, while two 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. One bodyguard ignited his explosives belt, killing him. It gave no further details.

IS once controlled large parts of Syria and Iraq and declared a caliphate in 2014. The extremist group was defeated on the battlefield in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019 but its sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in both countries.

In December, two U.S. service members and an American civilian were killed in an attack in Syria that the United States blamed on IS. The U.S. carried out strikes on Syria days later in retaliation.

U.S. and Iraqi authorities in January began transferring hundreds of the nearly 9,000 IS members held in jails run by the U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in northeast Syria to Iraq, where Iraqi authorities plan to prosecute them.