Officials: Erbil Attack Was Carried Out By Foreign Recruits

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The assailants behind last month’s deadly bombing in Erbil were foreign recruits and three detained accomplices who helped plan the attack are Arabs from Mosul, according to security officials in the Kurdistan Region.

National Security Adviser Masrour Barzani identified the three detainees as Hashim Salih, Muhammad Khalil Khadush and Samir Bakir Younis, saying all three were members of al-Qaeda’s Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

“The three have confessed that they were involved in the attacks,” Barzani told reporters in Pirmam on Saturday, denying that any Kurds were involved. Reporters were shown the taped confessions of the detainees.

Six assailants behind the September 29 suicide attack on the Erbil headquarters of the Asayish intelligence service were killed, together with as many guards and dozens of others. The rare attack in the three-province autonomous Kurdish enclave – the only peaceful region of Iraq -- was the first since a 2007 bombing on the same target.

Sources told Rudaw that one of the perpetrators was captured on the day of the attack, and it was his information that led to the three arrests in Mosul. Security officials said the leader of the group was still on the run.

“These three had purchased the vehicles used in the attacks and they had drawn the plan,” Barzani told reporters.

Sources also told Rudaw that one of the vehicles used in the attack had passed through the main Erbil-Mosul checkpoint known as Kani Qirzhala without proper questioning. They said that nine security guards at the checkpoint were temporarily held for questioning and given instructions on being more vigilant.

Security officials said that DNA tests would be carried out on the remains of the attackers to determine their identities.

ISIL, the al-Qaeda front in Iraq, has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Unofficial sources had said earlier that the aim of the attack was to free a jailed Islamist leader in Erbil’s prison. Others said that the attack was meant to kill a high-ranking Kurdish security official.

“Their main goal was to harm the security department,” said Tariq Nuri, head of Erbil security.