In Mosul: ISIS press youth, students into military service

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region: The Islamic State (ISIS) has started forceful recruitment of young men in Mosul for city security and frontline deployment, a source told Rudaw.

“ISIS is pursuing the youth of Mosul to conscript them, and if any family refuses to send their sons to join the group, they will have to pay one million Iraqi Dinars ($850) in return,” said a well-placed source inside Mosul.

“ISIS has established military bases for training and arming children inside Mosul,” he added.   

The Rudaw source added that the extremist group has tightened security in Mosul.

“Tens of ISIS militants and special forces of protecting the Caliph have been deployed inside Mosul, checking civilians and inspecting cars street by street,” he said.

The source said that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who is believed to frequently move base for fear of airstrikes, might be in town.

Kurdish Peshmerga officials said that al-Baghdadi had led an ISIS attack against Kurdish forces near Gwer east of Mosul on Friday.

Also on Saturday an education official in Mosul said that ISIS militants had detained four high-school teachers “for refusing to let their students volunteer to join ISIS.”

The official whose name Rudaw has concealed for safety reasons, said, "ISIS armed men raided al-Mamun high school and imposed on students of the final year of high school to join them on the way of Allah, and to defend the province of Nineveh from the Iraqi forces."

The official said four of the teachers refused the ISIS demand "and they were deained immeiately and taken to an unknown location."