"The Daesh [ISIS] militants had kidnapped the two men six months ago. Today [Monday] they were released for $40,000 in ransom each," Osman Mohammed, head of Kifri town's Asayesh forces told Rudaw.
The militants contacted the families of the two abducted men two days ago, informing them of where their sons would be released.
Mohammed downplayed ISIS’s power and role in the region, saying the militant group is hurting financially.
"The propaganda claiming that Daesh is stronger and richer than they were in the past is untrue. [...] Daesh has no financial resources, and thus resorts to kidnappings to feed its operations," he said.
The two released abductees are Kalar native Zana Shukur, 25, and Walid Farhad from the town of Kifri.
Recounting their abduction to Rudaw on Monday night, Shukur said their vehicle broke down on the Daquq-Kirkuk road just before dusk. A group of militants approached them as they tried to fix the vehicle.
"They captured and blindfolded us. They drove us into the unknown. After a three to four drive, they got out of the car and marched us into a place while [we were] blindfolded. They eventually put us in a basement, shackling our hands and tying our feet with chains," Shukur, told Rudaw, adding that they did not know their whereabouts.
Speaking of their life under ISIS for six months, he said "we did not see the sun. We had to sleep at 5 pm. They used to inform us only of prayer time. The person attending to us used to come with his face covered and forced us to blindfold ourselves."
"We had no hope. We were in the basement for the entirety of our abduction. It was only the two of us," he said.
Zana's mother is thrilled by her son’s release, saying she was constantly in tears during her son's abduction.
"I spent my time begging God to give me my son back," she told Rudaw.
This is the second group of abductees released by ISIS in return for ransom this week.
On Sunday, ISIS militants released two brothers, Qani Jalal and Hemin Jalal, who had been kidnapped on Friday near the Saladin-Diyala province border town of Nawjul on February 1.
"They were released for $70,000 in ransom," mayor of Nawjul Jamal Salih told Rudaw.
Disputed territories claimed by both Erbil and Baghdad in the provinces of Kirkuk, Nineveh, Diyala and Saladin have become a hotbed for the extremists group's activities.
A major security vacuum exists in these areas, caused by a lack of military coordination and communication between the Kurdish Peshmerga forces and the Iraqi army since October 2017, when Erbil-Baghdad relations hit an all-time low.
Despite declaration of their defeat in December 2017, ISIS continues to maintain an active presence in Iraq, particularly in the disputed territories, carrying out hit-and-run attacks against security forces, abducting civilians and officials, and bombing populated areas.
ISIS militants have recently relied more heavily on kidnappings. Toward the end of last month, militants abducted nine civilians in the Garmiyan region of Diyala, where they regularly establish fake checkpoints. The fate of the civilians remains unknown.
Two weeks ago, ISIS militants kidnapped nine civilians while disguising themselves in military uniforms at fake checkpoints that they erected on the Qaratapa-Gulala road.
James F. Jeffrey, US Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIL (ISIS) said in a briefing in January, "the fight against ISIS, of course, had a signal success back in March with the defeat of the caliphate along the Euphrates in Syria, but we are seeing ISIS come back as an insurgency, as a terrorist operation, with some 14- to 18,000 terrorists between Syria and Iraq and ISIS considers both countries as – as they have always done, as a single front."
US-led, anti-ISIS Coalition spokesperson Colonel Myles B. Caggins III warned earlier this month of ISIS sleeper cell attacks in the provinces of Diyala, Anbar, and Nineveh, and their use of extortion, illegal checkpoints to raise funds for itself, especially by stealing livestock and extorting farmers.
ISIS took control of large swaths of Iraq and Syria in 2014, including several Kurdish areas. Iraqi forces and the Peshmerga fought the militant group with the support of the US-led Global Coalition, declaring them defeated in Iraq in December 2017.
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