Iraqi and US forces use chat app sting to bag four top Isil commanders at the border

IRAQ has arrested four Isil commanders after luring them from Syria to the border via a group chat on an app used by the terrorist organisation’s leaders.

Intelligence services used a phone belonging to a detained aide to Abu Bakr al-baghdadi, the group’s leader, to contact the other commanders to set up a meeting in Iraq, Hisham al Hashemi, the Iraqi security adviser, told The Daily Telegraph.

Donald Trump, the US president, reacted to the arrests by tweeting: “Five Most Wanted leaders of ISIS just captured.”

Ismail al-eithawi, the Baghdadi aide, and the four others were all members of a group chat on the social media app Telegram, which Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant members use to communicate and spread their propaganda.

After posing as Eithawi to lure the other men, Iraqi troops lay in wait, expecting the senior jihadists to appear from the desert in a motorcade.

They were surprised to see them roll up on motorcycles, Mr Hashemi said.

American forces also took part in the sting, he said.

One of the jihadists, Saddam al-jamal, has been identified as the security commander of the organisation’s Euphrates Valley district. Jamal, a Syrian who was a leading rebel against President Bashar al-assad before defecting to Isil, is renowned for his brutality.

Iraqi television aired footage of him following his arrest discussing the disarray within the group, which has lost most of its territories to Iraqi and Syrian forces backed by Western airstrikes. “They’ve taken a lot of hits in battles and defeats and lost a lot of their resources from oil wells and elsewhere.

“There are many divisions inside the organisation, and splits and internal power struggles. Many fighters have lost the will to fight,” said Jamal, shown with a shaven head and long beard, speaking to a camera.

The other men arrested in the sting are Essam Abdel Qader al-zawbaei, Mohamed al-qadeer and Omar al-karbouli. Mr Hashemi said they were among the most senior Isil commanders captured alive since it declared a self-styled caliphate in Iraq and Syria in 2014. Baghdadi himself continues to elude capture.

Details gleaned from Eithawi’s interrogation led to an airstrike last month.

The method of the jihadists’ capture suggests they are taking more risks to communicate after their defeats.