The National Security Service announced on Friday (May 8, 2026) that it has infiltrated a banned Baathist organization and taken down its leaders from within a live broadcast.

An official statement noted that the Iraqi National Security Service carried out a qualitative operation, the first of its kind, targeting one of the formations of the banned Baath Party that adopts new names, following continuous intelligence and technical efforts extending over several months within the organizational structure of the formation that was operating secretly through platforms, groups, and private broadcasts.

It added that the service's detachments were able, through monitoring, tracking, and infiltration operations, to penetrate the accounts and platforms linked to the formation, control and manage them, in addition to monitoring the communications and movements of its elements and leaders accurately and continuously.

The statement continued that after completing the intelligence picture and identifying the targets, the National Security Service carried out simultaneous operations in several governorates that resulted in the arrest of a number of the formation's leaders and elements, as well as the seizure of devices, documents, and communication means linked to the banned organizational activity.

It noted that during one of the live broadcasts that gathered the formation's leaders and elements, the official spokesperson of the Iraqi National Security Service, Arshad Al-Hakim, appeared suddenly inside the same broadcast, announcing that the broadcast was under the service's control, and that what was being run secretly had become fully exposed to the competent authorities.

The statement pointed out that this infiltration caused a state of shock and great confusion among the participants in the broadcast, with a complete inability to respond or comprehend what had happened, after confirming that most of the formation's leaders had been managed and monitored intelligence-wise from within the service throughout the past period.

The National Security Service emphasized that the recent operations do not represent the end of the effort, but rather the beginning of a broader phase of tracking, pursuit, and dismantling what remains of these banned networks and their communication lines.