ISIS Fighters, Having Pledged to Fight or Die, Surrender en Masse
Source: NYT
DIBIS, Iraq — The prisoners were taken to a waiting room in groups of four, and were told to stand facing the concrete wall, their noses almost touching it, their hands bound behind their backs.
More than a thousand prisoners determined to be Islamic State fighters passed through that room last week after they fled their crumbling Iraqi stronghold of Hawija. Instead of the martyrdom they had boasted was their only acceptable fate, they had voluntarily ended up here in the interrogation center of the Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq.
The Iraqi military ousted the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, from Hawija in 15 days, saying it had taken its forces only three days of actual heavy fighting before most of the extremists grabbed their families and ran. According to Kurdish officials, they put up no fight at all, other than planting bombs and booby traps.
During the interview, he grew nervous. He said he was from Hawija and had joined the Islamic State because he believed in its cause, because his elder brother had, and because the $100 a month pay was better than anything else around. Mr. Mohemin shook his head. “This is the end of this state,” he said. He had wet his trousers, adding to the smell, but did not ask to use a toilet. “I believe if the governors are telling us to surrender, it really means that this is the end.” He swore to God that he was telling the truth.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/08/world/middleeast/isis-iraq-surrender.html
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