Iraqi forces have arrested more than 500 suspected members of the Deash Takfiri terrorist group among civilians fleeing the city of Fallujah, Press TV reported.
"We have arrested 546 suspected terrorists who had fled by taking advantage of the movements of displaced families over the past two weeks," Hadi Rzayej, police chief of Iraq's western conflict-ridden province of Anbar in which Fallujah is located, said on Monday.
"Many of them were using fake IDs," he noted, adding that separate screening is conducted among civilian boys and adults fleeing the area. Iraqi government forces release some after a few hours while others are to undergo more thorough interrogation.
Iraqi forces have been engaged in a major offensive to liberate Fallujah, located some 70 kilometers west of the capital, Baghdad.
The Iraqi army on Saturday opened a safe exit route for an estimated 50,000 civilians trapped in the center of the Deash-held city.