MESOP : FACING KOBANE – Iraqi Kurdish IS Leader Killed in Kobani

21.09.2014 – Karim Simko – BasNews, Soran – An Iraqi Kurdish man who was fighting along side Islamic State (IS) militants in the Kurdish city of Kobani in northern Syria, has been killed by Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). Halkawt Rafat, spokesman for the Soran Assayish (internal security forces) told BasNews that the IS leader was from the Choman region near the town of Soran northeast of Erbil. He was killed on Friday night in a fight near Kobani.

According to Rafat, the Kurdish jihadi militant was Abu-Salman al-Kurdi. Originally called Gaylan Osman, once he joined IS in Syria he took the name Abu-Salman al-Kurdi. According to information obtained by BasNews, he left for Syria in 2013, taking his family and two friends from the same region to fight with the Jihadi group in Syria. Osman had a senior position within IS and was an active contributor to social media. A few months ago he released a video clip threatening the Kurdistan Region. One photo shows Osman posing on a Humvee armored car captured from the Iraqi army in Mosul, leading to speculation that he may have been involved in the taking of the city in early June. Osman was killed in Tel Jazer village, about 6 km south of Kobani in Syrian Kurdistan, during clashes between IS militants and Kurdish YPG fighters.

Ismael Osman, Gaylan’s brother, spoke exclusively with BasNews and confirmed the reports that Gaylan has been killed. “On Saturday night Gaylan’s wife called us and told us he had been killed. She took a few pictures of his body as proof,” said Ismael. Ismael added that Gaylan’s wife told him that his brother was killed on Friday, but because of intense fighting they weren’t able to locate his body until Saturday night.“Our brother was a young man who was tricked in to becoming an IS member. When he left, we didn’t know he had chosen this path,” explained Ismael. The Kurdistan government has previously revealed that since the beginning of Syrian crisis three years ago, hundreds of Kurdish youths have gone to Syria to join IS. They have fought against the Syrian regime and some of them have participated in clashes in northern Iraq.