MESOP FOCUS : HOW YOUNG IRANIAN KURDS REACH & JOIN IS

Basnews – 30.07.2015 – SHAHO HAWRAMI – IRANIAN KURDISTAN– Islamic State (IS) is recognised for it ability to use technology to radicalise and recruit people from all over the world. But for those recruits to actually reach IS territories, they most overcome the hurdles put in place by international governments.

It is regularly reported that radical Iranian Kurdish youths are joining IS. BasNews can now reveal the routes used to travel to Mosul or Raqqa, the IS strongholds in Iraq and Syria respectively.

It was only after a Kurdish IS insurgent was killed last month that it was discovered that he had joined the jihadist group. His wife contacted her father-in-law to relate the news, and sources tell BasNews that he told her to remain in IS territories as he was unable to take her back.Other extremist Sunni groups are recruiting in Iranian Kurdistan. A young Kurdish college student from Zabol has allegedly joined Jaish al-Aadl (Army of Justice), a Sunni armed group fighting the Iranian army in the border areas between Iran and Pakistan. A local Muslim cleric told BasNews that for around $20,000 human traffickers will take radicalised youths to Turkey and then on to Syria. Another local told BasNews that the youths, in some cases go to Iraqi Kurdistan first, claiming that they are tourists looking for a job in the region.“But then they join IS or the Shi’ite Popular Mobilization Forces, known as Hashd al-Shaabi,” he continued. “The Sunni Kurds join IS, and the Shi’ite Kurds are being sent to Hashd al-Shaabi by the Iranian government itself.” He said that the Shi’ite Kurds fight IS under the command of General Shahabi-far, the former commander of Ansar al-Rasoul brigade in Jwanro, south west of Iran.