ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – During an operation in Basra, a member of the Iraqi National Security Service (INSS) was killed and seven others wounded on Tuesday after the forces strayed into an explosive trap laid by an arms dealer.

The incident follows an earlier investigation into an arms dealer, who had confessed to having a cache of over 90 hand grenades. Upon the dispatchment of the INSS forces to the site of the cache, they discovered that the premises was rigged to explode as the forces entered.

The explosion at the site led to “the martyrdom of Ali Zaghir and the injury of seven more officers,” said the INSS in a statement on Tuesday.

The operation comes amid a redoubling of efforts by Iraq in recent times to confine arms to state forces and restrict their illicit spread among the general public. The Ministry of Interior in early March announced that they will continue a program to buy back medium-range weapons from the public and launch a nationwide program to register arms that are owned by civilians.

Illegal weapons in Iraq stand out as one of the most pressing challenges to security and stability in Iraq, with Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani repeatedly pledging to address the posession of weapons beyond the scope of official state institutions in his government program.

Unofficial data puts the number of arms within Iraqi society at around 15 million pieces of medium and light weapons, with milita and tribal groups possessing the bulk of them.