BAGHDAD — The father of the Iraqi spy who spent 16 months undercover inside the Islamic State said Tuesday that his family’s long struggle to receive his son’s pension and death benefits has finally borne some fruit.

Iraqis have been abuzz with the story of Capt. Harith al-Sudani, the man Iraqi officials describe as the country’s most successful spy, since The New York Times published a story Sunday about him and his secret intelligence unit called Suquor, or the Falcons.

As a mole inside the terrorist group, Sudani foiled dozens of planned attacks in the Iraqi capital and provided his Iraqi commanders and the U.S.-led coalition fighting the group a live wire into the senior ranks of the organization. The Islamic State discovered Sudani’s real identity and killed him in August 2017, according to Iraqi intelligence officials.

The Sudani family has tried for a year to get recognition for Sudani’s sacrifice and his pension for his widow and three children, only to be stymied by Iraq’s infamous bureaucracy, according his father, Abid al-Sudani.

Sudani was killed by the Islamic State behind enemy lines and his family does not have a body to produce as proof of death, despite statements last year by his intelligence unit and Iraq’s joint military command announcing his death as part of the wider operations to defeat the terror group.

An assistant to Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi called on the Sudani family Monday evening at their home in the eastern Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City and offered to intervene on their behalf, according to Sudani’s father.

During an hourlong visit, the official took notes on Sudani’s case and called the appropriate administrative court judges who could issue a formal death certificate, the elder Sudani said.

Among the family, the attention from the government prompted gratitude, tinged with a bit of bitterness.

“He didn’t apologize for taking so long to pay attention to our suffering. But I didn’t point this out to him,” Sudani’s father said of the government official who visited the family. “I know he was sincere in trying to help us now. That is the important thing.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Margaret Coker © 2018 The New York Times