DUHOK, Kurdistan Region – Some 250 residents of the village of Abu Maria in Iraq’s Nineveh province were taken captive by the Islamic State (ISIS) after villagers refused an order calling on men to join the Sunni Muslim radicals as fighters, a Peshmerga source said.
Three villagers were killed in clashes with ISIS, which attacked the village near the town of Tel Afar, after the residents refused to give in to the call for volunteer fighters, the Peshmerga commander who is near the area told Rudaw on Sunday.
The captured villagers have been taken to a prison in the town of Kaske, the commander said.
“For a while now, ISIS has been carrying out assaults on villages in the Nineveh plains to conscript young men. If they refuse to join ISIS they are immediately killed or arrested,” he added.
ISIS is apparently on a recruitment drive in anticipation of an expected attack to liberate Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city which was captured by the militants in June.
An ISIS preacher warned Mosul residents on Friday to brace for an expected attack on the city by Iraqi and Peshmerga forces.
Although there has been no official confirmation, it is widely believed that the fight for Mosul is expected to be launched this spring.
ISIS is in control of a third of Iraq and about as much of neighboring Syria.
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