ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The Kurdistan Region Security Council (KRSC) on Thursday identified the assailant responsible for an axe attack that injured two people during the Akitu - Assyrian-Babylonian New Year - celebration in Duhok on April 1 as a Syrian national with ties to the Islamic State (ISIS).
Following the attack, “security forces affiliated with the Duhok security directorate captured the assailant named Louay Abd al-Rahim Ramadhan, also known as Abu Jahiman al-Baghouzi, a Syrian national born in 2003,” the KRSC said.
The security agency noted that “after interrogating the detained suspect, it was confirmed that he adhered to the terrorist ideology of the Islamic State [ISIS] and [answers to] the orders and directives of the ISIS command [which] had tasked him with carrying out this terrorist operation.”
The KRSC additionally released a video confession of the assailant in which he says that he is a Syrian refugee residing in the Domiz camp in Duhok, which was opened in 2012 and at its peak sheltered about 70,000 refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war.
In the video, Baghouzi says that he had been influenced by ISIS ideology through “following the social media pages of the Islamic State [ISIS] and its loyalists,” and through “reading their publications and articles and viewing their videos.”
The assailant then details how he had pledged allegiance to an ISIS emir named “Abu Hafsa al-Hashemi al-Qurashi” and underwent “religious and Jihadist courses” and “security training.”
As part of his indoctrination, Baghouzi says he was taught to “target and kill Christians,” decided to carry out his attack during Akitu, when “Christians hold a big festival in Duhok marketplace.”
“I got the necessary arms, a sword and axes, and prepared myself for this day,” he said, adding that he first hid his weapons in a bag and when he “reached the location of the targeting, I took out the sword and axes and attacked the Christians.”
In the video footage of his capture by celebrants during the attack, Baghouzi is heard shouting “Islamic State” while being tackled.
The gruesome attack sent shock waves across the Assyrian, Chaldean, and Syriac Christian communities in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq, especially as it took place during Akitu - also known as Kha-b-Nisan, the world’s oldest holiday – a time of celebration marked by traditional clothing, food, music, and dance.
Speaking to Rudaw English after the attack, Srud Maqdasy, a member of the Assyrian Democratic Movement’s (Zowaa) political bureau stated, "As we were celebrating Kha-b-Nisan - Akitu - and as the Assyrian nation was entering 6775 years old in Nohadra (Duhok), a suspect regretfully attacked the celebrants with sharp tools.”
Maqdasy, who treated the victims at the hospital, said that the injured were a 20-year-old youngman from Qaraqosh (Bakhdida) in Nineveh province and an older woman, 60-years-old, from Ain Baqrah village near al-Qosh, both of whom had come to Duhok to celebrate Akitu.
"Eyewitnesses heard him shout religious phrases during his attack and it is clear that he is influenced by terrorist organizations,” said Maqdasy, who is also a former Kurdistan parliament lawmaker.
The Kurdistan Region Security Council had previously stated that “a person with terrorist beliefs sharing the ISIS ideology attacked citizens with a sharp tool in the bazaar,” adding that the assailant was a Syrian national.
Iraq’s Christian community has been devastated in the past two decades. Following the US-led invasion in 2003, sectarian warfare caused followers of Iraq’s multiple Christian denominations to flee, and attacks by ISIS in 2014 hit minority communities especially hard.
The community’s existence in Iraq is now on the brink, with fewer than 300,000 Christians remaining in the country today, a staggering drop from nearly 1.5 million before 2003, according to data obtained by Rudaw English from Erbil’s Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda in February. However, the actual number is believed to be even lower.
