ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Two Kirkuk province residents were released by the Islamic State (ISIS) group on Monday after six months in captivity, they told Rudaw.
From the village of Yankjah in the disputed district of Daquq, Issa Taha and Dilan Mofaq were taken hostage by ISIS along with a colleague while guarding an oil pipeline.
The men were tortured and threatened with death while being held captive.
“They used to come and say, “we are going to kill you.” And I used to respond, “kill me then, free [my soul].” One of them said, “I’ll come now and kill you.” I told him, “OK, I don’t have a problem,” Taha told Rudaw on Tuesday, one day after his release.
“He used to make fun of me and flog my back and hands using a wire,” he added.
ISIS members contacted the two men’s families 11 times demanding ransom money. They said they would torture the captives if they couldn’t afford the sum asked for.
“They used to threaten us by saying, ‘we will kill them and bury them in a hole. We will bind him to TNT dynamite, if you don’t get the $50,000 dollars,’” Issa’s father Taha Ahmed told Rudaw.
Finally, each man was released by the group for $20,000.
Dilan Mofaq says after his captivity he lost the use of his left leg, his eyesight was significantly weakened and he is suffering from muscle atrophy.
“We did not move at all during this time. We were handcuffed and left behind,” Mofaq told Rudaw on Tuesday.
Although Baghdad announced the territorial defeat of ISIS in Iraq in December 2017, remnants of the group have returned to their earlier insurgency tactics, ambushing security forces, kidnapping and executing suspected informants, and extorting money from vulnerable rural populations, particularly in territory disputed between Erbil and Baghdad.
On Thursday, ISIS weekly propaganda al-Naba newspaper claimed its militants had carried out two attacks in Iraq on November 23, killing and injuring five. The militants also say they destroyed seven electricity towers.