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Iraq
Body of Iraqi soldier beheaded by ISIS found two years later
2019-09-01
[Rudaw] One chilly evening in late January 2017, first lieutenant Abu Bakir al-Samarayi was driving with two other members of the Iraqi border guards back to Baghdad from the border area with Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
where they were trying to fight Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
(ISIS
...embracing their inner Islamic Brute...
). Their car broke down in al-Nukhib, 300 km southwest of Baghdad. The men disappeared on the road after their car trouble.

In early February 2017, Samarayi and the two other Iraqi soldiers were murdered by ISIS hard boys. al-Samariyi was beheaded by ISIS, and the video of the beheading was published by ISIS on its propaganda channels back at the time.

Two years since the beheading Samarayi, his body was discovered by the 45th brigade of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, also known as Hashd al-Shaabi) in the town of al-Qaim west of Baghdad on Friday. The PMF are an anti-ISIS fighting force, and part of Iraq’s security forces. Some of its units receive support from Iran.

The PMF unit identified Samarayi’s body after the military intelligence branch known as Falcon Cell detained his murderers in the deserts of Anbar, according to a statement released by PMF on Friday.

Samarayi was a first lieutenant in the border guards unit of the Iraqi army. He was born in 1986, and lived in Baghdad with his family, according to Iraqi media reports.

He was kidnapped with two others by the Islamic State (ISIS) gunnies in late January 2017 in the southern parts of the western Anbar province, on the Anbar-Karbala road.

In an interview in February 2017, Samarayi’s brother told al-Fallujah TV that the family was in close contact with the ISIS gunnies who kidnapped him.

"We were ready to pay whatever they want to set my brother free," Samarayi’s brother said.

One ISIS fighter they were in contact with was angry that Samarayi, whose first name is common for Sunni Moslems, was working with the Iraqi government, which is mostly led by Shiite Moslems.

"The ISIS terrorist told us ’how come a person named Abu Bakir is working for the Iraqi government,’" said the brother.

Samariyi’s brother revealed that the two others who were kidnapped alongside his brother were also killed by ISIS.

"The ISIS hard boy who was exchanging texts with us vowed to find our house in Karbala city and kill all the family," he said.

The family asked many times to talk to Samarayi, but the ISIS gunnies were refused every time, according to his brother.

Many Iraqis shared photos of the moment of Samarayi’s beheading at the time and after his body was discovered, since he held his head high in that moment, in a symbol of defiance.

Ahmed al-Asadi, a member of the Iraqi parliament and senior PMF leader, said that Samarayi’s murderers were detained by PMF in Anbar last week.

"It is with great honor and joy that the 45th brigade of PMF in Anbar detained the murderers of the ’hero’ Abu Bakir al-Samarayi," Asadi told Rudaw English on Saturday. "PMF units, as part of the Iraqi security apparatus, are responsible for maintaining security side by side with the Iraqi army in all parts of Iraq and hunting down ISIS snuffies everywhere in the country."

Asadi also revealed that detaining the murderers of al-Samarayi was not during the fourth phase of the anti-ISIS "Will of Victory" operation, but during an operation the 45th brigade of PMF conducted last week in western Anbar.

Although the jihadist group was declared defeated in Iraq in December 2017, its remnants have retreated into Iraq’s deserts and mountains, where they have resumed earlier hit-and-run tactics of kidnappings, ambushes, bombings, and executions, working as sleeper cells.

Since January, there has been a spate of ISIS kidnappings and murders in similarly secluded spots to where Samarayi was taken, particularly in the isolated desert areas of the Anbar province. The killings led the federal government to outlaw the lucrative search for mushrooms in several areas.
Posted by:trailing wife

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