ISIS recruiter in disguise of IDP arrested in Kirkuk

(IraqiNews.com) Kirkuk – A well placed source in Kirkuk informed Iraqi News that the security forces in Kirkuk on Saturday announced about the arrest of a Muslim clergyman in the city on charges of having connections with ISIS.

Kirkuk police chief, Sarhad Qadir, in a statement, said that the man had snuck into Kirkuk from Hawija by disguising himself as an IDP and settling in Lailan camp in the city.

The man, who had been an Imam of a mosque in Kharaba Aziz village in Riyaz district of Hawija, admitted his links with IS and confirmed that he has been recruiting Arab IDPs for ISIS.

Thousands of IDPs are currently settled in Kirkuk, and only in last week, over 800 people arrived in Hawija. However, every IDP arriving on the Peshmerga front-line for the first goes through a security procedure.

It may be mentioned here that Hawija is one of the strategic locations for ISIS, and the group has been keeping its grip on it since mid-2014. The city is located in the west of Kirkuk.