SHASHOKAN, Kurdistan Region – A Kakei family who fell victim to a deadly ISIS attack on Thursday lived on the frontline with the group for years. They had earlier told Rudaw that they needed to arm themselves for self-defense against the extremist group.
Four people were killed in the attack and the fates of five people are yet unknown. It is feared that the militants took them hostage.
The attack targeted the village of Liheb, known to Kakais as Shashokan, in Daquq, south of Kirkuk.
There are ten villages in the area populated by the religious minority.
The village is nearly empty with only a few families remaining; most left before the rise of ISIS three years ago.
Hisammadin Najmaldin, one of his wives, his daughter, and an Arab shepherd who was working for him were killed in the attack. Initial reports incorrectly indicated that Najmaldin’s mother was also killed.
The militants were disguised as Peshmerga. Najmaldin’s son told Rudaw that they tricked his family.
“He told him that ‘we are setting an ambush, you come and inspect it.’ My father accompanied them. Two of the armed people walked with him on his left and right, and then they shot him,” Duraed, the son, said.
Najmaldin’s younger son, Rahman, was there at the time of the attack. He said that the militants spoke in Kurdish. One of them was called Aso by other ISIS fighters.
“We were inside [the car], and as soon as they left, I got out. Then I was told that ‘your stepmother and your sister were killed.’ They killed my father about 200 to 300 meters from here. They killed him, as they did the Arab shepherd. Then they took my brother and his wife and we do not know anything about them as of now,” Rahman said.
According to information received, ISIS militants had infiltrated the area on the edge of Peshmerga lines in preparation to stage an even larger attack.
“They stayed here for several nights,” Hakim Tagarani, a Peshmerga commander said. “As they were unable to stage an attack in a crowded place, the best place they thought to attack was Mam Hisammadin’s house.”
As the family buried their dead they vowed to revenge their tragic loss. The graves were marked with the Kurdistan flag.
The graves of the Kakei people killed in Thursday's attack marked by the Kurdistan flag. Photo: Rudaw video
he Kakai villages have long been a frontline in the fight against ISIS, some of them only few kilometers from ISIS positions.
Najmaldin, who had two wives, told Rudaw two years ago that he and his family were forced to arm themselves against the extremist group.
“We are at the frontline against the enemy,” he said at the time. “There is nothing between them and us. They are all Arabs stretching from here all the way to Saudi Arabia,” he continued, adding that he did not trust Arabs in the area.
Video: Rudaw's Hunar Ahmed interviewed Najmaldin family two years ago as they said they armed themselves in self-defense against the extremist group. He said that he did not trust Arabs in the area.
His first wife, who survived Thursday’s attack, told Rudaw two years ago that she does not feel safe without her rifle.
“We are very fearful. We have some farms here which we do not dare to harvest out of fear. I am all alone, together with this child and my husband,” she said.
“We should be armed when we move from some place to another. We do not dare to go out without rifles. It is very dangerous, as you could imagine. Last night they were very active, moving around. We see them, and their car is coming and going by. They are climbing the Dusar hilltop and they shoot us every now and then,” she continued.
The family said then that they had asked the Peshmerga to come and patrol their village, but the Peshmerga did not do so.
The Kakais, who hold unique spiritual beliefs, are ethnically Kurdish with roots that straddle the borders between modern day Iraqi and Iranian Kurdistan. They have been targeted by ISIS since 2014. Many now live near Kirkuk, Khanaqin, and in the Nineveh Plains. They have fought alongside Kurdish Peshmerga.
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