Kurdish villagers capture three IS fighters who kidnapped resident: Security

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Kurdish villagers in Garmiyan arrested three Islamic State (IS) fighters who kidnapped a Kurdish man and asked for tens of thousands of dollars in ransom, security said on Friday.

“The IS [fighters] kidnapped a Kurdish resident in Kirkuk province. On Thursday evening, they asked for $80,000 from his family to release him,” Garmiyan security told Kurdistan 24 Correspondent Harem Jaff.

Villagers arrested them near Glabat village in the town of Jabara outside the city of Khanaqin, a pre-dominant Kurdish area. The three suspected IS members were later handed over to Kifri security.

“They were armed. With them, they had six Kalashnikov weapon with ammunition, three pistols, seven grenades, three suicide vests, six cameras, a Toyota pick-up vehicle, and an amount of money,” a senior commander in Garmiyan security said, asking to remain unidentified in the report.

He also mentioned that the three suspects are from Kirkuk and the towns of Qaratapa and Sleman Bag.

“After their capture, the IS militants admitted that they have carried out terrorist attacks in Kirkuk province and surrounding areas over the past few years while being members of IS.”

The financial resources of the jihadist group have largely dried up in Iraq, namely after the military defeat of the group in late December of 2016.

“Kidnapping and asking for ransom along with taxing people in some areas are one of the ways that the jihadist group is trying to collect some financing,” security said, adding that, just on Thursday, IS carried out 11 different attacks in Kirkuk province and northern areas of Diyala and Salahaddin provinces.

The security situation in Kirkuk and Diyala has been considerably deteriorated after the Kurdish Peshmerga forces were forced to withdraw from the area by Iraqi forces and pro-Iran Hashd al-Shaabi (PMF) militias in October

Many Kurdish and Iraqi officials have warned about the re-emergence of IS in the country, namely in Kirkuk and surrounding provinces.

Editing by John J. Catherine 

(Additional reporting by Harem Jaff)