PHOTO: Kurdish security arrests six IS members among IDPs

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – Kurdish security in Kirkuk Province on Wednesday arrested six members of the Islamic State (IS) who hid among Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Hawija city.

As the military operations to liberate Hawija and Mosul city near, more IDPs flee from IS to areas under the control of Kurdish Peshmerga forces, the spokesperson for Kirkuk Security (Asayish) Farhad Hama Ali told Kurdistan24.

Ali noted that as the IDPs move to Peshmerga front lines, IS members aim to join them and escape to Kirkuk.

“We have arrested six [IS] terrorists who wanted to sneak to Kirkuk with the IDPs,” he continued, “They have participated in many IS military training and attacks on Peshmerga and the Iraqi army.”

According to Ali, the Kurdish security has a list of names of people who joined IS following the emergence of the group in northern Iraq in June 2014.

[Arrested IS member Hussein Ali Sab’h (L) questioned by Kurdistan24 correspondent Hemin Dallo in Kirkuk Province, Kurdistan Region, October 5, 2016. (Photo: Kurdistan24)]

Hussein Ali Sab’h is one of the six members that had been arrested.

“I didn’t participate in any attacks. I participated in a 40-day military training on how to use weapons, including BKC and machine guns,” Sab’h told Kurdistan24.

He mentioned that he was guarding an IS hospital where he was receiving IQD 200,000 (US $172) monthly from the jihadist group.

Sab’h praised the treatment of Peshmerga forces and Kurdish security who arrested the group and called on IS members to surrender.

Speaking about executing Peshmerga or Iraqi security personnel’s, he said, “I saw IS beheading two Shia militia Hashd al-Shaabi militants in Hawija.”

Recently, Kurdistan24 released the photo of an IS senior leader who was arrested on the Makhmour front line, east of Mosul by Peshmerga as he was trying to sneak to Erbil with IDPs.

Kurdistan24 also showed the video of almost 800 IDPs, mostly women and children, arriving at a Peshmerga front line in western Kirkuk.

The number of IDPs escaping from IS has dramatically increased in the last weeks, according to Kirkuk security.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany