Kurdistan Region official announces return of 5 Yezidis from Syria

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — As a Kurdish official announced the return of five Yezidis from Syria on Tuesday, the US-led international coalition also confirmed the killing of an ISIS grand mufti, who wrote the group’s doctrine and also lectured on the “slaughter of innocents.”

 

“Coalition forces killed Turki al-Binali, the self-proclaimed “Grand Mufti,” or chief cleric, of ISIS, in an airstrike May 31 in Mayadin, Syria,” the coalition announced on Monday. Mayadin is a city in eastern city in the Deir ez-Zor govenorate.

 

The Kurdistan Regional Security Council (KRSC) had made the same announcement on June 6.

 

Binali was a close confidant Baghdadi and “he provided propaganda to incite murder and other atrocities, attempted to legitimize the creation of the ‘caliphate’.”

 

He was a Bahraini national born in 1984 in Al-Muharraq, according to the US Treasury Department, and he had used many other aliases.

 

“His recruiting efforts for the terror group also included multiple recorded lectures attempting to justify and encouraging the slaughter of innocents,” wrote the coalition.

 

In this undated image obtained from a militant website on Dec. 12, 2014, Turki al-Binali gives a lecture to dozens of worshipers and fighters in a mosque in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. Photo: AP

 

One group targeted by ISIS was the Yezidis. Men from Shingal were rounded up and killed. Women and girls were taken as “wives” and married off to ISIS leaders. Yezidi women tell stories of multiple rapes.

 

Hussein Koro, the head of the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) Yezidi Women Rescue Office, told Rudaw on Tuesday five Yezidis were liberated from Raqqa and have reached a safe place.

 

Two of the five Yezidis are women, two children, and one is a 16 year-old-girl, according to Koro. Four of the survivors are from the village of Kocho in Shingal. The other one is from the Ger Azer sub-district.

 

He added that it is expected that they will rejoin their families on Wednesday.

 

According to statistics from Koro’s office, so far 3,020 Yezidis have been liberated from ISIS.

 

Yezidi activist and Iraqi lawmaker Vian Dakhil told Rudaw in late May that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has paid more than $5 in ransom to secure the release of 3,004 Yezidi people from ISIS captivity since 2014.

 

She added that most of the remaining captives, some 3,400 Yezidis, have been transferred to ISIS-held cities of Raqqa in Syria, and Tal Afar and Ba’aj areas in northern Iraq.

 

Binali was sanctioned by the United Nations Security council in April 2016.

 

“Binali was the most high-profile voice within ISIL during the lead-up to its declaration of the so-called ‘caliphate’ in June 2014,” detailed the UN.

 

Binali led an ISIL [ISIS] support network actively recruiting Gulf nationals to join ISIL in Syria, and according to the UN, also distributed funds and provided propaganda lectures for ISIL.

 

Al-Bin’ali had been the Head of the Fatwa Committee in ISIS, and al-Hazimi, is a Saudi Arabian sheikh imprisoned in the kingdom since April 2015, who claims to represent the true Salafi-Wahhabism. Binalis claim Hazimis' interpretations result in chain takfir. The Hazimis retort that Binalis are postponers who accept the principle of ignorance as excuse, according to a Brookings Institute analysis paper.

 

Russia’s military announced on June 16 it had verified information that its forces had killed Baghdadi in a May 27 airstrike, but its foreign ministry later said Russia does not have 100 percent confirmation of his death.

 

“Without definitive proof of his death, we believe al-Baghdadi is still alive, a fugitive terrorist, in hiding,” coalition spokesperson Ryan Dillon told Rudaw English. “One thing that is not in question is that ISIS is a losing organization.”