ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Seven ISIS militants—including three Kurds—have surrendered to the Peshmerga since Saturday in Kirkuk and the township of Gwer, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Erbil, Peshmerga officials have told Rudaw.
“At around 5:30 am on Sunday, three ISIS militants who were Kurdish nationals arrived at a Peshmerga front line in Kirkuk to surrender. Two of them were from the township of Said Sadiq in the Sulaimani province and one from Erbil,” Brigadier General Kakamand Kak Rash, commander of the Peshmerga’s Emergency and Defense Forces in Kirkuk, told Rudaw.
“The surrendered militants escaped ISIS in Mosul and managed to reach Peshmerga front lines in Kirkuk, and they went back on joining and fighting for the extremist group," Kak Rash added.
The commander also told Rudaw that the militants would be treated according to the terror law and “for more investigations we handed them over to the Asayish (security forces) to know whether they have taken part in any battle and crime against the Peshmerga.”
In a separate incident, four ISIS militants came to a Peshmerga front line Saturday morning to surrender in the township of Gwer, another Peshmerga official told Rudaw Saturday.
“Four ISIS militants named Abdulrazaq Mohammed, Mahmoud Mohammed, Mohammed Saeed and Hassan Faraj fled their military units to the Peshmerga front line to surrender,” Captain Abdulla Framarz, a Peshmerga commander on the Gwer front line, told Rudaw.
According to Framarz, investigations would soon take place with the surrendered militants and later “we will send their cases to the court and the Peshmerga ministry.”
Speaking to Rudaw, one of the ISIS militants said, “We fled for two reasons, fearing death and starvation.” The ISIS militant told Rudaw they had fought for ISIS since June 2014 and now “there is no trust within the organization [ISIS], if they suspect a militant they will kill him right away.”
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