Date: Feb 16, 2018 Source: The Daily Star Senior Daesh leader returned to Iraq from Turkey Agence France Presse BAGHDAD: Iraqi authorities said Thursday they have managed for the first time to have a top leader of Daesh (ISIS) extradited from Turkey. Ismail Alwan Salman al-Ithawi, 55, was tracked to Turkey’s Sakarya region, detained and returned through cooperation between Turkish, Iraqi and U.S. intelligence agencies, a senior official in the Interior Ministry’s Falcons unit hunting Daesh members told AFP. The break came after his unit had “infiltrated the highest levels” of the militant group, he said. A native of the Iraqi city of Ramadi, Ithawi was the group’s “minister” in charge of religious edicts and headed a Daesh committee that decided on senior appointments, according to the official. He had fled the group’s now-shattered “caliphate” in Syria and was living under his brother’s name in northern Turkey. “We asked our ambassador in Ankara to intervene with the Turkish authorities by providing the arrest warrant issued by Iraqi courts and recent photos of Ismail,” the official said. The militant group’s territory has now been wiped out in Iraq and reduced to a small foothold in Syria by a series of punishing assaults in both countries. The focus has since switched to tracking down the group’s senior leadership and the thousands of foreign fighters who once flocked to its banner.