Hours before, a security advisor to Iraq's government said that Iraqi agents had detained a top aide to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, then used an app on his smartphone to lure four commanders from the terrorist organization into a trap - convincing the four Iraqis and one Syrian to cross the border from Syria to Iraq where they were captured by officials.

The aide, Ismail al-Eithawi (a.k.a. Abu Zaid al-Iraqi) was captured in Turkey by authorities and handed over to Iraqi counterparts, according to an account told to Reuters by Iraqi security advisor Hisham al-Hashimi. What followed was a three-month operation to track a group of senior Islamic State leaders hiding in Syria and Turkey.