KRG hands over 853 suspected Daesh members to Baghdad

By Mazin Majeed Asaad Baqal, Hemn Baban

ERBIL, Iraq

The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq has handed over 853 Daesh suspects to Iraqi authorities in the past eight months, a KRG official said Monday.

Dindar Zebari, the KRG coordinator for international advocacy, said at a news conference in Erbil that the suspects were arrested on charges of being members of the Daesh terrorist organization.

Zebari said although the suspects had been handed over to the authorities in Baghdad, trials against some of them are still underway in Iraq’s northern city of Mosul, a onetime Daesh stronghold.

- Support for internally displaced expected

Zebari said 2.1 million internally displaced Iraqis and refugees are living in camps and villages in the KRG area and the KRG government had expected support from international aid agencies because of the poor living conditions.

But that the United Nations is interested in the newly liberated areas rather than the internally displaced persons, he added.

A total of 1,814 Peshmerga forces have died in confrontations with Daesh terrorists in northern Iraq, leaving 10,725 others wounded, said Zebari, adding 44 Peshmerga are still being held by Daesh.

He denied claims that there are secret prisons in the Iraqi Kurdish region.

Last December, officials in Baghdad declared that the Daesh terrorist group's military presence in Iraq had been all but dismantled after a three-year war.

However, from time to time, Iraqi officials announce operations against Daesh-affiliated "sleeper cells" in certain parts of the country.