BAGHDAD, Aug. 4 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi intelligence service said the Islamic State (IS) militant group has recruited women for terrorist attacks, state-owned al-Sabah newspaper reported Sunday.
The extremist group has let women increasingly participate in terrorist attacks, Abu Ali al-Basri, head of the Intelligence and Counter Terrorism Department at the Interior Ministry, was quoted as saying.
The IS asserted that the recruitment of women will pose a threat of suicide attacks and bombings to communities in several countries, al-Basri added.
Many of the recruited women have been transferred from Syria to several other countries including "Sudan before the ouster of former President Omar al-Bashir," he said.
Such women were also recruited in eastern and western Iran, the Iraqi intelligence noted.
However, according to al-Basri, the Iraqi intelligence managed to penetrate the IS, which is said to have led to the collapse and fragmentation of the militant group.
Al-Basri also revealed the names of 13 senior IS leaders who were killed by the Iraqi intelligence during the past three years, including those close to the IS top leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
The Iraqi Intelligence and Counter Terrorism Department is one of the most active intelligence agencies tasked with hunting down the extremist IS militants.
It has carried out many intelligence operations in cooperation with Iraqi forces and international coalition.
Some of its activities were carried out in neighboring Syria, which resulted in the destruction of many important IS headquarters and killing of some of the extremist senior leaders.
