ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Kurdish families have made hundreds of thousands of dollars in ransom payments to bring back their young men who joined the Islamic State group (ISIS) in Syria, a Kurdish religious affairs official said.
The payoffs have been made to local mediators who have assisted families find sons across ISIS territories and bring them back to their parents, he said.
“We have had families who’ve paid $170,000 for the return of their loved ones,” said Mariwan Naqshbandi at the Kurdistan Ministry of Religious Affairs.
He added that Kurdish intelligence services are closely involved in the process and helping families locate loved ones.
According to him, more than 1,000 Kurds have joined ISIS since 2012, nearly half of them from the Kurdistan region.
But the number has shrunk since then.
“We know that around 250 Iraqi Kurds have been killed within ISIS ranks and over 100 more have come back to their families,” Naqshbandi told Rudaw, explaining he based his numbers on information provided by Kurdish families.
He said ISIS often informs relatives if their boys die in fighting.
Last week, a former Kurdish minister reportedly paid $100,000 to mediators for the return of his young son.
The young man, who joined ISIS in April this year, surrendered to the Peshmerga forces in the Sultan Abdulla area, after agreements were reached.
One Kurdish officer told Rudaw the young Kurd had an older brother who is a lieutenant with the Peshmarga troops and is currently fighting ISIS.
More than 1,200 Peshmerga troops have been killed in clashes since August last year, when ISIS attacked Kurdish areas in Iraq, according to the Peshmerga ministry.
Kurds who return after fighting alongside ISIS are held and questioned by authorities before they are turned over to their families, to ensure they pose no threat to their communities.
In most cases, entire families are involved in the process, with written guarantees and verifications.
Mosul’s exiled governor Atheel Nujafi told Rudaw earlier that around 200 Kurdish militants are still with ISIS and being trained in the Syrian stronghold of Raqqa to defend Mosul against an expected offensive by Iraqi and coalition forces.
The director of Kurdish security forces in Kirkuk, Halo Najat, told Rudaw some recruits had joined ISIS together with their entire families and had moved to ISIS-controlled territories.
“We know that at least 10 Kurdish people from Kirkuk have joined the militants, with three of them now confirmed dead,” Najat said.
Over 80,000 Kurdish Peshmerga forces patrol a long border of some 1,600 kilometers shared with the Islamic State.
Nearly all Kurdish towns have been recaptured from the militants, including Saadiya, Jalawla and most parts of the Yezidi town of Shingal.
But ISIS still controls many Kurdish villages south of Kirkuk and in Nineveh province, which it uses as military bases to shell nearby Kurdish positions.
Last week, 13 villages south of Kirkuk, most of them already deserted, were recaptured by Peshmerga forces.
Most refugees refuse to return to their areas for fear of landmines planted by ISIS.
One Peshmerga was killed by a landmine in an operation in Kirkuk last week.
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