UPDATE - Police nab wanted Daesh commander in Iraq's Mosul

UPDATES WITH ADDITIONAL ARRESTS

By Mohamed Waleed and Serhad Shakir

NINEVEH, Iraq (AA) - Iraqi police on Wednesday arrested a wanted Daesh commander in the northern city of Mosul, according to a local security official.

Identified as Taha Mohamed Salam, the commander was found and arrested by police -- based on an intelligence tipoff -- in eastern Mosul, Nineveh Police Chief Hamed al-Jabouri told Anadolu Agency.

Mosul is the regional capital of Iraq’s northern Nineveh province.

In a related development, Iraqi security forces on Wednesday arrested three other wanted Daesh members in Nineveh, according to the same security official.

The trio was reportedly rounded up in Mosul’s eastern Kokjeli district.

Thousands of people have been arrested by Iraqi forces for suspected Daesh links since the terrorist group was driven from Mosul -- its primary stronghold -- late last year.

Last December, officials in Baghdad declared that Daesh's military presence in the country had been all but dismantled following a three-year war.

Iraqi security forces, however, still sporadically mount operations against what they describe as Daesh “sleeper cells”.