ISIS executes Kurdish police officer 19 months after his abduction

Mustafa Shilani 2021/05/31 23:13

ISIS released a video purporting to show its fighters executing Kurdish policeman Jalal Baban, kidnapped 19 months earlier in the Kurdistan Region's unofficial administrative district of Garmyan. (Photo: Social Media)

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – ISIS militants executed a Kurdish police officer who was kidnapped, along with his cousin, some 19 months ago outside the town of Qara Tapa, northeast of Diyala province in the unofficial administrative district of Garmyan.

In a brutal video published by ISIS and thought to have been filmed roughly two days earlier, viewers saw the moment when a handcuffed Jalal Baban was fatally shot by his captors.

The extremist group previously released Baban's cousin after the family paid a ransom, but refused to set Jalal free because he had been working in the local police force.

Until the release of the video, Baban's family had been anxiously awaiting any news of him.

Raana Mustafa, his mother, told Kurdistan 24, "I was waiting for my son's return, and now he was martyred and I do not even know where his body is."

Ziyad Mohammed, one of Baban's cousins, said, "More than a year and a half ago, Jalal and my other cousin were sleeping in our village before ISIS kidnapped them in a surprise raid and took them to an unknown destination."

"ISIS has orphaned an entire family, he continued. "Jalal has a wife and four brothers, including two with special needs, and his martyrdom affected the psychological condition of his mother."

The brazen, broad daylight killing shown in the video clip shocked the local public, who say it highlights ISIS militants' continued ability to operate in Iraq's disputed territories, of which the family's town is a part.

An official from the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs in Erbil revealed on Monday that cooperation between its fighters and the Iraqi military began to coordinate their monitoring of ISIS activity in the areas, disputed by Baghdad and the autonomous Kurdistan Region.

The areas have suffered from the lack of unified military communication and strategy in large tracts of land ranging from the disputed territories ranging from Khanaqin in central Diyala province to Kirkuk and northward to multiple areas surrounding Mosul.

Since its territorial loss in Iraq, ISIS fighters have adopted many of the same guerrilla tactics if used to gain prominence prior to seizing control to large parts of both Iraq and Syria in 2014, launching attacks on security forces and the population in general throughout several districts in Diyala province.

Editing by John J. Catherine