Kurd’s body retrieved days after ISIS killing in Makhmour

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Bashdar Safar, a member of the Kurdish security forces (Asayish) kidnapped and murdered by the Islamic State group (ISIS) this week, was buried in Makhmour on Saturday after his body was retrieved from the foot of the Qarachogh Mountains.

Safar had hiked into the mountains with four friends last Saturday to look for desert truffles. There they were ambushed by a group of ISIS militants and taken hostage.

They were taken to a nearby cave in Ali Rash where the militants “grilled them with questions for four hours,” Rashad Galali, a Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) official in Makhmour, told Rudaw. 

Safar was the only member of the group carrying a smartphone, which contained pictures of him in Asayish uniform. Safar’s friends were released. He was not. 

After learning he had fallen into ISIS hands, Safar’s family tried to contact the militants through local tribal chiefs to appeal for his release. 

“But the ISIS militants rejected, saying the Sharia judge would decide on his fate,” Galali said.

On Tuesday, four days after his capture, ISIS released a photograph of Safar sitting on the ground surrounded by militants. The group claimed he had been killed. 

Nothing more was heard of Safar until a local shepherd discovered a body at the foot of the Qarachogh Mountains and alerted village chiefs, who retrieved the body on Saturday.

The postmortem examination, conducted in Erbil, confirmed the body was Safar. He had been shot in the back of the head.

Safar was buried in Makhmour on Saturday afternoon.

Makhmour residents who previously spoke to Rudaw say ISIS is becoming more brazen, frequently approaching them in the hills when they collect truffles. Although the militants often appear friendly, locals say they check their phones for photographs and correspondence. 

ISIS seized Makhmour and surrounding villages in 2014 before they were quickly routed in a combined operation led by the Peshmerga, Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) guerillas, and Coalition forces.

The Peshmerga and PKK were then forced out of Makhmour in October 2017 when Iraqi forces seized control of the disputed territory. 

Although the jihadist group was declared defeated in Iraq in December 2017, its remnants have retreated into Iraq’s deserts and mountains, where they have resumed earlier hit-and-run tactics of kidnap, ambush, bombing, and execution, aided by highly sophisticated sleeper cells in the cities and hinterland.