Sadr militia says it killed ISIS child-recruiter in Iraq

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A militia led by Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr announced on Friday that it had killed a prominent Islamic State leader in the city of Samarra who had been tasked with recruiting children to take part in terrorist attacks across the country.

Aside from leading the Saraya al-Salam (Peace Brigades) militia, al-Sadr is also the head of the Sairoon Coalition, the top vote-getter in Iraq's May 2018 national parliamentary election.

The Islamic State militant killed, according to a statement released by the militia, “was responsible for recruiting children for the Islamic State group and preparing suicide bombers to carry out terrorist attacks” in Iraq.

“Mohamed Entikhab, one of the most dangerous Islamic State military leaders in Iraq, was killed along with four of his aides during a security operation in Samarra city in Salahuddin Province,” the statement continued.

Saraya al-Salam is the current iteration of Sadr's Mahdi Army, which took a significant and often infamous part in Iraq's sectarian civil war that ignited after the bombing of a celebrated mosque in Samarra in the years following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime.

After the emergence of the 2014 Islamic State, Saray al-Salam was mobilized as part of the Hashd al-Shaabi militias, also known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF).

Though militarily defeated in Iraq in December 2017, the Islamic State continues to wage an insurgency in several provinces in the country with suicide bombings, roadside explosions, ambushes, kidnappings, and killings.