ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Kurdistan Region security forces announced Thursday the arrests of 10 people in connection with a bomb planted under a flag of the Islamic State (ISIS) group in the eastern Sulaimani province district of Said Sadiq in early January. Two members of the security forces were injured by the explosive device. Most of those arrested were members of one Kurdish family.
The Kurdistan Region’s Asayesh (internal security forces) released video confessions from the suspects.
In the video, a 25-year-old man, who introduces himself as Saman, said he, his brother, and brother-in-law wanted to carry out an activity that would attract attention and express their “love” of the terror group.
They first erected an ISIS flag in an abandoned area in Said Sadiq, “but it went unnoticed,” he said. So they tried again, this time planting a bomb under a flag in the hopes it would get some attention.
The flag was seen by local residents who informed the security forces. Two members of the Asayesh, Sarkhel Sarawi and Atta Qadir, were injured when the device exploded on January 2.
Saman said his brother, Abdullah, and brother-in-law, Khalat, helped him prepare the first flag, but the second one was tailored by his sisters.
“The idea of an Islamic State was in my mind for a long time under the influence of my father because he was a member of Ansar,” said Saman, who is also named in the video as Jihad.
The statement from the Asayesh said Saman’s father, Omar Dayis, has joined radical groups like Ansar al-Islam, al-Qaeda, and ISIS since 2001.
“I have been familiar with the ideology of the Islamic State since 2017 through social media like Facebook and YouTube,” said Khalat, 26. He would watch preachers’ videos posted in private groups on these platforms.
The group planned to plant other explosives “and monitor them to find the right time to blow them up, but we were arrested by the Asayesh,” he added.
The three suspects were arrested on January 24 and were described by the Asayesh as “planners and perpetrators.”
Also arrested a few days later were the driver who took them to the Said Sadiq area, Saman’s wife, and the mother and two sisters of Saman and Abdullah. They are all Kurds.
The Asayesh said they also confiscated “all the materials used for their terror action.”
Two Arabs were also arrested late on Wednesday in connection with the incident, but the Asayesh did not provide further information, citing an ongoing investigation.
ISIS took control of large parts of Iraq in 2014. Although the Iraqi government announced the territorial defeat of ISIS in December 2017, remnants of the group have returned to earlier insurgency tactics, ambushing security forces, kidnapping and executing suspected informants, extorting money from vulnerable rural populations, and carrying out bomb attacks.
