Arrested IS member: Attacking Peshmerga weakened IS

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – An arrested Kurdish member of the Islamic State (IS) spoke to Kurdistan 24 about life under the extremist group's rule and confessed that the jihadists' attack on the Peshmerga was their “undoing.”

Dara Hassan was living in the city of Penjwen in Sulaimani province before joining IS four years ago. In an exclusive interview with Kurdistan 24, he said that IS' attack on the Kurdistan Region and the Peshmerga forces were a “mistake” which weakened the militants and eventually led to their defeat.

According to the regretful former militant, senior IS members “realized too late that they should have stayed away from the Kurdistan Region” as the attack on Peshmerga fighters triggered the creation of the anti-IS coalition. 

Hassan said he joined IS while he was still a student of Islamic Studies at the University of Sulaimani in 2013, where he was introduced to Jihadi ideology through the works and speeches of famous Arabic and Kurdish Muslim scholars who encouraged extremism.

Hassan connected with Kurdish IS sympathizers through social media. They brought him to Mosul through Kirkuk, and from there he moved to IS-held territories in Syria where he met and married a woman who was also from Sulaimani.

Hassan said he joined IS but was quicly disillusioned as what he witnessed in Syria was not what he expected, saying that becoming an IS member meant giving up all personal agency.

"When you arrive in IS-controlled areas, no decision will be yours anymore. You will not be allowed to do the things that you wanted to do before joining," he said.

Hassan said the militants can do nothing other than follow orders, even if they do not believe in them. 

Saying he regrets the years he wasted within the extremist group's ranks, he added that the violence he witnessed have not left his thoughts.

“IS tortures, beheads, amputates in public in the name of Islam, but what they do is the opposite of true Islam,” he said.

Kurdistan 24 learned from Kurdish security sources that a planned operation by the Kurdistan Region Security Council (KRSC) had led to the arrest of Dara Hassan and his wife, but the time and location of the operation were not revealed.

Editing by G.H. Renaud

(Interview by Goran Shakhawan)