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Thousands of Iraqis Flee ISIS to Kurdish Territory Amid Military Offensive Captured ISIS Fighters’ Refrain: ‘I Was Only a Cook’
(about 9 hours later)
KIRKUK, Iraq — Thousands of Iraqis have been fleeing Islamic State-controlled territory to the safety of Kurdish areas in northern Iraq, driven by a military offensive to retake the city of Hawija, the extremists’ last major urban stronghold in the country. KIRKUK, Iraq — Thousands of civilians fleeing the Iraqi military’s push to evict the Islamic State from its last major urban stronghold in Iraq now include hundreds of suspected fighters for the extremist group, dirty and disheveled, who arrive at checkpoints claiming innocence and begging for mercy.
The refugees’ reception in Kurdish-held areas was an indication that vital cooperation between Kurdish pesh merga fighters and the Iraqi military was continuing, at least on some level, despite the festering dispute between Iraq and the Kurds over the latter’s recent vote favoring independence. While civilians from the stronghold, the city of Hawija, have sought safety in Kirkuk and elsewhere in Iraq’s Kurdish region, this past weekend was the first time they came in large numbers with men of fighting age.
According to Kemal Kirkuki, the commander of the pesh merga in the area west of Kirkuk, an estimated 3,500 Iraqi civilians had been allowed to cross Kurdish front lines from areas held by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, in Hawija on Friday and Saturday. An additional 1,000 were expected on Sunday, pesh merga officials said. According to Iraqi Kurdish officials in Kirkuk, 90 percent of these men are suspected of having been Islamic State fighters — including some who may have committed beheadings and other atrocities — and they are being aggressively interrogated.
An estimated 78,000 people are in Hawija, although the exact number is not known, and as many as 3,000 Islamic State fighters. Iraqi Kurdish officials were taking no chances on Sunday as they prepared one suspected fighter in a small office as his wife and four children squatted on the dirt outside.
Kurdish officials have provided camps in Kirkuk Province to take in the refugees after screening them to ferret out any Islamic State militants who may be among them. A lieutenant in the Asayish, the Iraqi Kurdish region’s intelligence service, put one hand on his holstered pistol and pointed with the other hand at a spot on the tiled floor. The prisoner understood and knelt on that spot, as an Asayish corporal tied the man’s hands behind his back with a scarf.
The Iraqi Army and the police began an offensive on Sept. 21 to retake Hawija, which lies close to the Kurdish-held, oil-rich city of Kirkuk and has a largely Sunni Arab population — and where the Islamic State has found many supporters. While the Kurds did not actively participate in the offensive, they said they would maintain defensive lines and prevent Islamic State forces from escaping. “It doesn’t matter what you do, I’m not going to spy for you,” said the man, Salah Hassan, 32, who described himself as a former construction worker.
By facilitating the flight of refugees from the area, the pesh merga has removed a potential humanitarian disaster from the battlefield. “We don’t care about that,” the lieutenant said. “Just tell the truth.”
“There has been no change in our support for the Iraqi Army; we are supporting them in everything from our side,” said Mr. Kirkuki, who said the Kurds had opened roads, shared GPS coordinates of ISIS positions and offered their hospitals for wounded Iraqi fighters. “If they need it,” he added, “they can have any help from our side.” “Yes, tell them you’re ISIS,” the corporal said, brandishing a pipe in the prisoner’s face. “Don’t lie.”
Iraqi anger over the nonbinding independence vote last Monday, which Kurds supported by 93 percent, led to a declaration in the Iraqi Parliament that the military should retake Kirkuk from the Kurds. Such a move would make the Hawija operation impossible. Mr. Hassan hung his head and admitted it, then looked up. “I was only a cook.”
Cooperation between Kurds in northern Iraq and the Iraqi military has been vital in the fight against the Islamic State, which has seen its territory in Iraq greatly diminished over the past year. American officials have expressed concern that the independence vote would have a negative effect on that cooperation and serve ISIS interests. The lieutenant laughed good-naturedly. “Tens of them tell me they were cooks,” he said. “They had so many cooks, you’d think all they did was eat.”
The Iraqi offensive against the Islamic State in Hawija began on Sept. 21 and is now in its final stages, Iraqi officials say. The army and police, backed by Shiite militias, are close to retaking the city, which is believed to still have 78,000 residents — and up to 3,000 Islamic State fighters.
Iraqi Kurdish officials are intent on identifying any known fighters among the arriving men who may be linked to atrocities. Any with charges against them would be sent to court, while the others would eventually be allowed to rejoin their families in camps inside Iraq’s Kurdish region.
The men were first stripped of their shoes, belts (which in most cases were just string or rope), turbans and any belongings, then made to kneel in rows in a large tiled room, their heads bowed forward.
Awat Jeza, an intelligence officer wearing a surgical mask and gloves, stood before 130 of the kneeling men, who had all arrived on Sunday at the Asayish headquarters in Dibis, outside Kirkuk. He pulled down his mask as he told any fighters to step forward.
“Tell us who is ISIS,” he said. “If you were ISIS even one minute, one hour, one day, get up now.
“Later we have lists of names and we will find out. If you are honest, you may go free. If one of you surrenders now and tells us the truth, we will be merciful with you, but if you don’t, we will be —” Mr. Jeza paused, perhaps to choose the right word — “difficult.”
Just in the Dibis headquarters on Sunday, there were at least 300 fighting aged men, and similar numbers arrived on both Saturday and Friday.
Of the Sunday arrivals, about 60 were singled out and tied up as Islamic State suspects — plastic cuffs were brought in later to replace the scarves — and separated from the others. They were taken to smaller rooms, and in addition to bowing and kneeling, they were arranged so that all they could see was the wall in front of them.
Kurdish officials were anxious to show that they were not mistreating the arrivals. Maj. Gen. Halo Najat Hamza, head of the Asayish intelligence service, pointed out that Islamic State forces have been attacking Kirkuk from Hawija for three years. When fighters of the pesh merga, the Kurdish region’s military force, have been captured, they are often tortured and beheaded.
“All night long they are shooting at us here,” he said, “and now they say, ‘We were all just farmers, or cooks.’ And now they come to us to protect them.”
A common theme in the interrogations was disavowal of many of the extremists’ infamies.
Kneeling with hands bound behind his back, Gomah Salah, 58, confirmed that he had served in the Islamic State as a “coordinator,” which he said had involved not fighting but checking resident identification cards. This made the intelligence corporal laugh.
“I swear to God, I never participated in beheadings or anything like that,” Mr. Salah said. “I never even saw a beheading.” He did confirm that he had heard such things took place in Hawija.
“He’s a liar,” the corporal said. “We will have his name, we’ll know all about him.”
A few miles away, on the pesh merga front lines with Islamic State positions in the Hawija area at a village called Ala Ghera, Kurdish forces on Sunday were receiving a stream of unarmed young men, with women and children. They separated the men, then had female pesh merga soldiers body-search the women in a tent.
While most of the men denied they had been Islamic State fighters, most of the women routinely admitted they were from Islamic State families, according to the female Kurdish soldiers.
“We are fleeing because of all the airstrikes,” one of the refugee women said, surrounded by four small children.
The American-led coalition has been bombing Islamic State positions in Hawija intensively in support of the Iraqi offensive.
The pesh merga commander for the western zone of Kirkuk, Kamel Kirkuki, toured the front lines where refugees from Hawija were crossing and addressed 20 men who had just arrived, segregated from the others.
“Your pride, your honor, your wife and your sister will be safe here,” he told them. “I promise you no one will touch you.”
One of the arrivals thanked him and said, “We knew we could trust the Kurds.” When Mr. Kirkuki’s delegation left, however, the men glowered sullenly at visitors.
While the pesh merga fighters have not actively joined the offensive in Hawija, their leaders expressed support for the operation, and were happy to be removing potential fighters from the battlefield.
It was strong evidence that the dispute between the Iraqi Kurds and central government over the Kurdish vote for independence last Monday had not affected their military cooperation against the Islamic State. “We are supporting them in everything from our side,” said Mr. Kirkuki.
The Iraqi Kurds had opened roads, shared GPS coordinates of Islamic State positions and offered their hospitals for wounded Iraqi fighters. “If they need it,” he added, “they can have any help from our side.”
Mr. Kirkuki said the Islamic State fighters, most of them Iraqi Sunnis, are fleeing toward Kurdish lines for fear of the Shia militias, which have committed extrajudicial executions, sometimes shared on social media.
Mr. Hassan, the bound suspect, agreed. “We hear they just kill us.”
He got up, the back of his dishdasha badly soiled, and shuffled away, careful to keep his head down. Mr. Salah, whose dishdasha was also soiled, did the same.