MOSUL, Mosul province – Leaders of the Islamic State have decided to establish secret police forces allegedly aimed at thwarting anti-ISIS resistance cells that have reportedly been assassinating the group’s emirs and officers, a Kurdish official has told Rudaw. “Daesh gunmen were organizing a group of secret police during the group’s latest meeting,” Saeed Mamozini, the head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party branch 14 in Mosul, said on Friday, using an Arabic acronym for ISIS. “These so-called secret police will be set out all over Mosul province. They are reportedly allowed to shave their beards and even talk against ISIS, aiming to remain secretive”, Mamozini has explained. “They can even appear as beggars,” he added. A source inside the ISIS-held city of Mosul who spoke on condition of anonymity told Rudaw the force was established to hunt down anti-ISIS fighters who are apparently murdering ISIS leaders. Most anti-ISIS armed groups choose to keep their existence in secret, the source said, but recent reports suggest their role in killing several top jihadist fugures inside Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq which has been held by ISIS since last summer. An armed anti-ISIS group called the Free Officers Movement (FOM) on Thursday claimed responsibility for the assassination of the military attache of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed caliph of the Islamic State. The FOM was established in June by 490 former officers of the Baathist regime in order to confront ISIS in Mosul. Over the past two months, the group has claimed the killing of several ISIS leaders and in November took responsibility for the assassination of Abu Shahab al Suri, the ISIS leader then in command of the western part of Mosul city.
