ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – It was after he had gone through all the checkpoints and was nearly within sight of his target in the town of Kalar that the 19-year-old Kurdish jihadi decided not to detonate his bomb-laden truck and suicide vest.
If Haji – his jihadi nickname – had gone through with his mission for the Islamic State (ISIS), it would have led to another scene of carnage and devastation, maybe a repeat of this month’s suicide car bombing in Erbil that killed five and wounded 29.
Last week’s attack targeted the Erbil Governorate office. Haji’s mission was to hit the security headquarters at Kalar, in the Kurdistan Region.
The Kurd, whose first contact with the Islamic State (ISIS) had begun with a Facebook exchange, was within 200 meters when his truck got a flat tire. He decided against detonating the bombs, and was picked up by Asayish, the Kurdish security.
Sitting in a Kurdish prison in handcuffs and with plastic slippers on his feet, he recalled how he was given the truck that morning, selected at a hideout from several others. The bearded instructor had shown him how to operate the bomb trigger, and to use the back-up if the first failed. It could also be detonated remotely, with a simple cell phone trigger. For even greater carnage, he was to wear a suicide vest, which the instructor also showed him to detonate.
Just before he was sent on his way, his trainer took pictures of Haji and videotaped what were to be his last moments alive.
Some Kurds joined ISIS after the jihadis stormed into Mosul and took over Iraq’s second-largest city in June, together with about a third of the country, which they have ruled since then.
Haji explained that he and a friend contacted ISIS through Facebook, and their point of contact was an Iraqi Arab near Kirkuk who arranged their journey to Mosul, via Makhmour.
He said he had met another man his age who also wanted to join the jihad, “In order to enforce the rule of Koran on earth.”
His training as a suicide bomber began after his ISIS handler sent him to the town of Saadiya in northern Diyala.
The first four days after his arrival, Haji was placed in one of Saddam Hussein’s former palaces. “There were 14 people there, most were Arabs and two foreigners.”
He said he did not talk to any of the new recruits because he couldn’t speak Arabic. On his last day there, however, he met another Kurd named Abubakir.
Haji said that one of the reasons he wanted to join ISIS was because of the “rise of immorality and adultery in the world,” including his native Kurdistan Region. “People are trapped in adultery, I know that much,” the young man said.
Haji, who for a time was lodged in a home seized from a Shiite family – which he and ISIS both consider non-Muslims – was not completely cut off from his family. He said he called his mother every day on a friend’s cell phone. “She would cry and tell me to go home.”
Although he was ready to kill and die for ISIS, Haji admitted he did not know much about the Koran or Islamic laws. He said his understanding of the Koran came from Islamic sermons aired on local TV.
During his time with ISIS, Haji said he witnessed beheadings which were filmed by the militants on their cell phones and watched later.
He said he was able to get through checkpoints and arrive almost at his target, telling guards he was carrying a cargo of food. He said a lead vehicle – a blue tanker -- had been guiding him to the target.
“When I arrived at the second checkpoint the security guard asked me where I was going. I said I was delivering food and showed him my ID cards and he let me go. I followed the blue tanker. I had seen the target and the roads in a video they had shown me earlier.”
“When I drove for a while, the blue tanker disappeared. Then I got flat tire. I turned left and just 200 meters before the target I had second thoughts and didn’t want to do it,” Haji explained, saying he does not know what came over him.
He was picked up by Asayish after they spotted him aimlessly driving around.
Now, Haji believes he made the right decision to abort his mission, but he wishes he had not been caught. He said he would go home if released.
