Iraqi Special Operations Forces (ISOF) (Arabic: قوات العمليات الخاصة العراقية‎) are Iraqi special forces unit created by coalition forces after the 2003 invasion. The forces, directed by the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service, consist of the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Command, which has three brigades subordinate to it. The Counter Terrorism Service (Jihaz Mukafahat al-Irhab, originally translated as Counter Terrorism Bureau) is funded by the Iraq Ministry of Defence.


Special operations troops of the Iraqi Army were first established when Colonel Khaleel Jassim Al-Dabbagh built the first royal special units in the name of Queen Alia Forces in the mid-1950s. It consisted of Sunni and Shia Arabs, as well as other components of the Iraqi population. They were mainly used on an emergency basis to carry out special missions inside of Iraq and outside when the country was at war.
After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, the Saddam Hussein-era Iraqi Army was disbanded by the occupation authorities. Because of that, the current Iraqi commando force was recruited from scratch, mostly from Shia, Sunni Arabs, Kurds, Assyrians and Turkmen. In November 2005, after training in Jordan with Jordanian Special Forces and U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Berets), the Iraqi Special Operations Force had 1,440 men trained, composed of two combat battalions, considered equal in training and combat effectiveness to an average U.S. Army infantry battalion, and two support battalions. By March 2008, the force consisted of a single brigade which in turn was made up of an Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Force (ICTF) battalion, three Commando battalions, a support battalion and a special reconnaissance unit.
On April 18, 2010, ISOF troops, supported by U.S. troops, carried out a night-time raid on a terrorist safe house near Tikrit. The ISOF surrounded the building and called on them to surrender, but instead the terrorists fired on them. The ISOF returned fire and assaulted the building. The ISOF killed Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the leaders of the Islamic State of Iraq, 16 others were also arrested.
In the Battle of Mosul that began in October 2016, the special ops forces were the first division into the city of Mosul, which had been occupied by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant since 2014.  On 1 November 2016, the 1st Iraqi Special Forces Brigade fought its way into the Gogjali quarter of the city, becoming the first Iraqi unit to enter the city during the offensive.On 10 July 2017, the Iraqi prime minister declared the liberation of Mosul from ISIS. During a Senate hearing in July 2019, former United States Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, Mick Mulroy, stated that Iraqi Security Forces with the support of the United States liberated an area the size of West Virginia from ISIS. He specifically highlighted Iraqs Counter Terrorism Service and said they rank among the regions most capable and that they serve as a testament to the capacity-building efforts by the United States.