Iraqi diplomat says over 100 Europeans affiliating to ISIS

At least 100 European Isis fighters will be prosecuted in Iraq, with most facing the death penalty, the country’s ambassador to Belgium has reportedly said. Jawad al-Chlaihawi said Belgians were among those detained, along with jihadists from Russia, Chechnya and Central Asia.

Fighters from around the world joined Isis’s call to arms when the group established its so-called caliphate across Iraq and Syria in 2014. British fighters, including the notorious Mohammed Emwazi, also known as ‘Jihadi John’, were among them. He is believed to have been killed in a drone strike in Raqqa, Syria in 2015. 

Mr Chlaihawi told Belgium’s RTPF there were around 1,400 family members of foreign fighters of suspected Isis members, including children, being held near Mosul. Many are reportedly from Turkey, and former Soviet countries in Central Asia, but there are also believed to be some French and Germans among them.

It is unclear what will happen to the families and children of members of Isis. “We are holding the Daesh [Isis] families under tight security measures and waiting for government orders on how to deal with them,” Army Colonel Ahmed al-Taie told Reuters. He added: “We treat them well. They are families of tough criminals who killed innocents in cold blood, but when we interrogated them we discovered that almost all of them were misled by a vicious Daesh propaganda.” 

On military side, Iraq’s military command denied Tuesday claims made in an Israeli report which suggested that the Kirkuk town of Hawija, a major Islamic State bastion, was recaptured based on a deal with the militants.

“Iraqi troops had not, and will never, strike a deal with Daesh (IS), neither in Hawija nor anywhere else,” said Yahia Rasoul, spokesman of the Joint Operations Command. “There had been a ferocious fighting, hundreds of IS were killed, and hundreds of explosive devices were defused…what deal are you talking about?,” he said labelling the allegations “very funny”.

Israeli website Debka said in a report published Tuesday that Iraqis liberated Hawija “without firing a shot”.

“Our sources reveal that, instead of launching this offensive, Iraqi army commanders negotiated a deal with the jihadists through the mediation of local Arab tribes,” read the report. “They granted safe passage for the occupiers and their families to withdraw from Hawija, in return for a commitment not to resist the Iraqi army’s takeover of the town. Iraqi troops indeed secured a corridor for their exit, after which the Islamic fighters headed for Diyala in eastern Iraq near the Iranian border.”

Rasoul said a press conference is slated for Thursday on Hawija operations, delineating the troops that had partaken in the offensive, and losses on militants behalf. JOC declared the start of Hawija offensives late September, and declared the fall of the major IS enclave last Thursday. Iraq launched a U.S.-backed campaign in 2016 to recapture IS-held areas, militants are currently cornered on the borders with Syria, according to the governmnt.