VIDEO: Freed on $70K ransom, Kurdish brothers kidnapped by ISIS reunite with family

Two Kurdish brothers who were abducted by members of the so-called Islamic State over two weeks ago in rural parts of the Kurdistan Region’s Garmiyan area were reunited with family after their release on Sunday on a $70K ransom.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Two Kurdish brothers who were abducted by members of the so-called Islamic State over two weeks ago in rural parts of the Kurdistan Region’s Garmiyan area were reunited with family after their release on Sunday on a $70K ransom.

Kurdistan 24 was at the scene when Qani’ and Hemin reunited with family members. They were kidnapped on Feb. 1, caught in a fake security checkpoint set up by the terrorist organization between the districts of Kifri – part of the Kurdish-run Garmiyan Administration – and Tuzkhurmatu in Iraq’s Salahuddin province.

A relative of the brothers told Kurdistan 24 the two men are from a family that is a victim of the genocidal Anfal campaign led by Iraq’s former dictator Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, which killed upward to 182,000 people according to estimates by Kurdish officials. Their father and four of their brothers lost their lives during the brutal campaign in 1988.

The Garmiyan Administration is an unofficial province in the Kurdistan Region that includes the three districts of Kalar, Kifri, and Chamchamal, in territory disputed between Baghdad and Erbil.

Regional Kurdish Peshmerga and Asayish forces are in charge of security in Garmiyan, while national Iraqi forces control the region to its south and west.

In a separate incident close to the same area in late January, an Islamic State sleeper cell abducted several civilians at another mock security outpost set up on a road connecting two towns in and near the Garmiyan area.

Days after the first abduction, senior Turkmen lawmaker Arshad al-Salihi said the militant group had executed many of the abductees—whom he said were members of the Turkmen ethnic group. The exact number is still unconfirmed and the whereabouts of the rest is unclear.

The Islamic State has routinely held captives from rural areas for ransom, often killing them even after family members had followed their demands for large amounts of money. They have also carried out hundreds of bombings in different parts of the country as they continue to wage an insurgency following their territorial collapse in Iraq in December 2017.

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Kurdish officials have warned that the security vacuum in these areas created by the lack of coordination between the two forces offers extremist fighters the opportunity to regroup and stage attacks in nearby populated areas.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany

(Additional reporting by Harem Jaff)