his own count killed dozens of innocent men, women and children. Now
facing likely execution, Thahir Sahab Jamel disavows the black-clad
Islamist army, but his Kurdish jailers say they’ve heard it all before.
In a jailhouse interview with FoxNews.com in the
Kurdish-held city of Kirkuk, Jamel, 27, detailed how he joined Islamic
State in 2013, served as a foot soldier in the takeover of Mosul a year
later and, he claims, eventually became disillusioned with the dark
vision of his fellow fighters.
“At the beginning, ISIS told us we would all go to
heaven,” Jamel said, speaking under the watchful eyes of Kirkuk police
guards. “But now that I am in prison it means I am going to the fire. I
am going to hell.”
Handcuffed and partially masked, Jamel, who has been
in solitary confinement since his arrest two and a half months ago, said
he joined the terror group like many other young Sunni Muslim men
opposed to the Shia-led government in Baghdad.
“A man named Salam talked to me and got me connected
to ISIS. He told me I needed to be a jihadist and fight the Shia
government. He convinced me to fight the government,” Jamel said. “I
started getting involved as they were planning operations to begin in
Iraq and Syria.”
Jamel lived with his mother and three brothers in Hawija, a smaller
town just south of the oil-rich Iraqi city of Kirkuk. He had a decent,
agriculture-related job, and his family did not understand why he wanted
to throw in with the insurgents who would soon become the world’s
most-feared terrorist army.
In the early days, Jamel said, most of the recruits
were young men in their early 20s. But soon their ranks were swollen by
experienced soldiers as old as 50 from Saddam Hussein’s old army. The
battle-hardened men, also Sunni Muslims alienated by the Shia
government, were experienced with small arms and heavy equipment.
The mission was to take over the nation, and kill infidels and fellow Muslims who stood in their way, he said.
“Everything was about setting the role of Shariah [Islamic law],” he said. “We have to have a world based on Shariah.
“We were told that yes, people here are Muslims, but
they are not the right Muslims,” he said. “And to build the Caliphate we
must control the economy, take over every oil field.”
Jamel was initially permitted to carry a gun, but as
ISIS grew, orders came down that only senior leadership and mid-level
commanders, known as “Amirs,” could carry arms when not in battle. But
Jamel would not be without his weapon long: He was made an Amir in early
2015 and put in charge of a group of 70 fighters in the
heavily-contested area of Baiji.
ISIS moved on the oil-rich city of Baiji, situated on
the primary road to Mosul some 130 miles north of Baghdad, a week after
overrunning Iraq’s second-largest city of Mosul in June 2014. With
momentum from victory, and their ranks increased by a steady stream of
foreign fighters, ISIS battled Kurdish and Iraqi government forces for
the city, which is home to the nation’s largest oil refinery, the Baiji
oil refinery and other crucial energy and money-producing facilities.
Over the next 18 months, the city would change hands
repeatedly, its residents caught in a perpetual, bloody crossfire. The
prized refinery that made Baiji so critical was so heavily damaged that
it may not be operational again for years.
Jamel did not offer an estimate as to how many
civilians and soldiers he and his men killed, but he admitted he
willfully took part in the slaughter and also handed over prisoners to
his ISIS superiors for torture and execution.
Now that he is facing trial at the hands of his
enemies, Jamel carefully treads the line between repentance and
resignation. He told FoxNews.com he never cared for the public
beheadings and civilian murders his team carried out to instill fear in
conquered villages. He simply obeyed orders, he claimed, even ones
handed down from the shadowy, self-professed Islamic State Caliph Abu
Bakr al-Baghdadi.
“I got many orders from him,” Jamel said. “But he is a liar, he lied to us. His plan is all wrong.”
Jamel was arrested in May in a village near Kirkuk.
Police in the government-controlled city had intelligence reports on him
and arrested him and several associates. It was after the arrest, and
as he faced justice in the Kurdish-run courts that Jamel’s conscience
seems to have awakened.
“It haunts me that I am responsible for killing many people, we killed them for nothing,” he said.
Kirkuk Police Brig. Gen. Sarhad Qader Mohammad told
FoxNews.com Jamel told authorities after his arrest that he had been
planning to escape ISIS, a claim Mohammad said police hear nearly every
time they capture a jihadist.
“When they are arrested they try to say they are no
longer with ISIS, but most of the time it is not true,” Mohammad said.
“And we know they are terrorists, but we have to complete a special
investigation.”
This process typically takes a couple of months,
during which the prisoner is held in isolation as police investigators
and Kurdish security agents known as “the Asayish” interrogate them.
Mohammed insisted that all captives are treated as “human beings” and
are not subject to torture and other violations of international law.
Once this is complete, the prisoner is relocated and
able to mix with other criminals and ISIS fighters. He or she also then
faces court trial and sentencing – typically life behind bars, but
sometimes a death sentence by hanging for acts of terror.
The Kirkuk Police Department currently has some 70
ISIS members awaiting trial. Since the militant group’s onslaught began
just more than two years ago, some 60 fighters have been sentenced to
death. Most are local men, but some are foreign fighters, Mohammed said.
“We have many operations and ways to arrest them,” he
added. “We arrest them sometimes when they are sleeping, and sometimes
we arrest terrorist men trying to hide by dressing as women.”
Source: FoxNews.com
