Captured ISIS commander admits beheading 3 Kurds: ministry

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Iraqi forces on Monday night announced the capture of an Islamic State (ISIS) commander and six other militants in southwest Kirkuk province who are alleged to have committed “heinous crimes” against civilians.

The seven unnamed ISIS suspects were arrested by Iraqi troops, the defense ministry announced via social media, without describing the circumstances of their capture.

Among the prisoners is an alleged ISIS commander who managed the Hawija Grain Mill when the group controlled the area from mid-2014 to October 2017.

In a video published on Facebook by the Iraqi defense ministry, the unnamed ISIS commander, whose face is blurred, is showed confessing to the murder of three Kurds and two other individuals from Diyala province.

“Members of our group kidnapped three Kurdish nationals and brought them to Hawija. Our leader ordered me to behead them. Together with two other persons who were from Diyala, we executed the order,” he said, without identifying their leader.

Iraqi and Kurdish security forces regularly publish videos of their captives making confessions – a format often seen in jihadist propaganda films. Human rights groups regularly accuse Iraqi courts of using confessions obtained by duress.

The defense ministry condemned the “barbaric” group, accusing them of “heinous crimes against humanity killing innocent people” without providing details.

The group allegedly confessed to plotting attacks inside Kirkuk using the families of slain ISIS militants, the ministry claimed.

Iraqi troops recently launched a string of operations across several provinces to quell the ISIS resurgence, including a one-day sweep of the southern Kirkuk region on August 4 dubbed “New Dawn”.

The third phase of operation “Will of Victory” was launched in Diyala and Nineveh provinces on August 5 by Iraqi Security Forces backed up by Iraqi and coalition airpower.

During the third phase, Iraqi forces searched 25 villages over a 1,702 square kilometer area in Diyala for ISIS remnants, arms caches, bomb workshops, and hideouts. They detained 18 ISIS fighters and killed four others, according to Iraq’s Security Media Cell. They also destroyed 12 tunnels and 24 hideouts and seized 42 explosive devices and six mortar rounds, it added.

ISIS seized vast areas of Iraq and Syria in the summer of 2014. Although Iraqi’s former prime minister Haider al-Abadi declared the group defeated in Iraq in December 2017, ISIS remnants and sleeper cells remain active, returning to their earlier insurgency tactics.

Their resurgence has been particularly apparent in areas disputed between Erbil and Baghdad, where contention over control of territory has created security vacuums open to exploitation.

According to a US Department of Defense report to the US Congress published in early August, ISIS are “working to rebuild their capabilities” in Iraq and Syria. 

“ISIS is rebuilding in remote territory, which is hard for Iraqi forces to secure,” the report said, and is “able to recruit in these areas [Iraq’s northern and western provinces] using family and tribal connections”.

On Friday, Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi said Iraqi forces have yet to encounter “real resistance” from ISIS militants in recent operations.