Turkish security arrests suspected former IS military head for Sinjar

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Turkish security forces on Tuesday arrested two suspects, a father and son, for alleged links to the Islamic State (IS), a police source said.

The two were captured as counter-terrorism squads carried out an early morning raid in Kayseri Province in the region of Turkey known as Central Anatolia, the source told the state-run Anadolu Agency on condition of anonymity.

The suspects were listed as an Iraqi national named Abdulkhaliq al-Kurdi and his son Mehdi al-Kurdi.

According to the police source, Abdulkhaliq was known as the head of IS military operations in Sinjar (Shingal) and his son Mehdi was active for the organization in the neighboring town of Tal Afar, about 30 miles to the East, toward Mosul.

Ezidis (Yezidis) were subjected to a wide range of atrocities at the hands of IS after the jihadist group overran Shingal in Aug. 2014, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee their homes. Others were not as lucky and remained stranded under the militants' brutal control.

IS is infamous for having subjected women and girls to sexual slavery and trafficking across territory they held in Iraq and Syria, kidnapping children for forced religious conversion, and grizzly mass executions.

So far, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Ezidi Rescue Office has contributed to the liberation of over 3,000 of the kidnapped Ezidis, mostly women. Roughly 3,000 more are still missing and are believed to be dead or in the hands of IS militants.

Editing by John J. Catherine