KURDS & ISIS : Kurdistan Islamic Movement influences ISIS

25.02.2014 – Bestun Kakayi – BasNews, Erbil – The spokesman for Kurdistan’s Ministry of Endowment and Religious Affairs, Mariwan Naqishbandi, claims that extremist groups including the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) are influenced by the Kurdistan Islamic Movement (KIM).

Naqishbandi told BasNews that extremist groups in Syria have partly emulated KIM, as they were the first Islamic party to turn militant and carry guns. “The ministry has informed all the mosques and television channels that any religious speeches that are recorded or shown should have the ministry’s approval, but the Islamic party’s channel refuses to do that and some of the speeches and programs they show are inappropriate,” said Naqishbandi. Kurdish authorities are particularly unhappy with Saudi owned television channel Wissal. They say it encourages Kurdish youths to go to Syria and broadcast religious speeches from Kurdistan in order to push for this. In recent months a wave of Iraqi Kurdish youths have travelled to Syria to fight alongside extremist groups. A number of them have died while others have returned to the Kurdish region.