ISIS kills ‘repenting’ Iraqi officers

Ahmed Sultan

A number of media outlets opposed to ISIS has recently published a document that shows that the terrorist organization had killed the soldiers and the officers who had surrendered to it, even as ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, had promised to excuse them.

The Reference has obtained a copy of the document which is attributed to what is known as the Security Court.

When ISIS emerged, Baghdadi called on Iraqi army troops to surrender to his organization, vowing to excuse them, and give them salaries and housing.

ISIS set up a special administration and called it “Penance”, whose mission was to receive army troops who wanted to join it.

Officials at the administration worked to draw in Iraqi security and intelligence personnel as well as Iraqi chieftains. Those arriving at the administration were made to sign a pledge not to fight ISIS and stop supporting the Iraqi government.

In 2014, ISIS spokesman Abu Omar al-Adnani said his organization would accept Iraqi army troops if they regret backing the Iraqi army and stop supporting that army.

The penance system required army troops to lay down their arms and register themselves at the administration mentioned above.

Nevertheless, ISIS excluded some Iraqi government officials from the penance initiative. It even called for killing them as soon as possible.

Those excluded were Iraqi intelligence officers, counterterrorism officers, judges, political party leaders and the members of the Iraqi parliament.

Killing

According to Adel al-Kubaisi, a former ISIS senior official, Baghdadi had issued directives for assassinating the officers who had repented.

In doing this, Kubaisi said, Baghdadi was afraid that the same officers would join the Iraqi army and police yet again.

He estimated the number of officers and troops killed in this regard at 2,000.

Abu Essa al-Masri, a former ISIS officer, officers and troops repenting were killed for illogical reasons, including changing their phone numbers or changing the places where they lived.

He said these actions proved the brutal nature of the members of the organization.

According to Abu Moslem al-Iraqi, another former ISIS officer, the organization had arrested all army troops who signed the repentance certificate.

They were then taken to Mosul where they were executed, Iraqi said.

The aforementioned document also says that a large number of Iraqi army and police officers was killed, along with some parliamentary candidates in Nineveh and Saladin.

Betrayal

Counterterrorism specialist Ali Bakr says terrorist organizations always consider themselves to be synonyms for the Islamic religion.

“They always believe that their decisions are made to serve the Islamic religion,” he told The Reference.

This, he added, explains why they are ready to dishonor the pledges they make.

Bakr noted that ISIS is now busy trying to preserve its cells in both Iraq and Syria.