A Kurdish official has revealed that more than 250 Kurdish militants fighting for Islamic State have been killed during the last few years in Iraq and Syria.
According to statistics given to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)’s Ministry Endowment and Religious Affairs by security agencies, since the beginning of the Syrian revolution around 500 Kurds from the Iraqi Kurdistan region have joined Islamic State (IS), and over half of them have been killed.
Mariwan Naqshbandi, spokesperson for the KRG’s Ministry of Endowment and Religious Affairs, revealed to BasNews, “Based on data we have received from the intelligence agencies of the KRG, 500 Kurdish youths from the region have joined IS so far. Over 250 of the jihadists have been killed in clashes with Peshmerga forces, and 50 more have left IS and returned to Kurdistan – they are currently under investigation by the security agencies of KRG.”
Naqshbandi continued, “100 of the Kurdish jihadists remain in Syrian, and the last 100 have returned to northern Iraq and are based in Mosul Province, ready to fight the Peshmerga and Iraqi security forces”.
According to the statistics, among the Kurdish Jihadists are people with different levels of education; from university students and clerks, to those with no education at all. Most of them are confirmed to have followed some sort of radical Islamic ideology.
