BAGHDAD // ISIL militants have abducted 100 Sunni tribesmen near the city of Tikrit, local tribal leaders said on Wednesday, apparently to neutralise suspected opponents before a widely expected army offensive.
Iraqi soldiers and pro-government Shiite militias have been massing for days in preparation for an attack on ISIL strongholds along the Tigris River to the north and south of Tikrit, which has been controlled by the Sunni radicals since they swept through northern Iraq in June, scattering Iraq’s security forces.
The kidnappings come after the abduction of dozens of Assyrian Christians by ISIL prompted an exodus of terrified families fleeing their homes. About 1,000 Assyrian Christian families have fled their villages in the northeastern province of Hasakeh since Monday’s kidnappings, said Osama Edward, director of the Sweden-based Assyrian Human Rights Network.
About 800 families have taken refuge in Hasakah and 150 in Qamishli, a Kurdish city on the border with Turkey, Mr Edward said, adding that there are about 5,000 displaced individuals.
Mr Edward said he believed the mass abduction was linked to the militants’ recent loss of ground in the face of US-led coalition air raids against ISIL that began in Syria in September.
Tribal leaders said ISIL fighters had detained 42 Sunni tribesmen in the village of Rubaidha on Tuesday whom they suspected of being ready to take up arms against them.
“They broke into the houses and asked for mobiles,” said Hatam Al Obeidi, a Rubaidha resident who escaped to the town of Tuz Khurmatu on Wednesday.
“They were checking everything in the mobiles that might show that the owner is against them,” he said.
Last week, insurgents detained 56 men accused of belonging to a government-backed Sunni militia, said Abu Kareem Al Obeidi, who left Rubaidha for the neighbouring Diyala province to avoid abduction.
The militants initially set up a headquarters in Rubaidha, about 20 kilometres north of Tikrit, after their June offensive, but pulled out after army helicopters mistakenly bombed the house of the local sheikh beside their base.
The sheikh then asked the militants to leave, residents said.
Iraq’s military said about 2,000 Shiite militia fighters, known as the Popular Mobilisation, had arrived near Tikrit in preparation for a major operation against ISIL.
Raed Jabouri, governor of Tikrit’s Salahuddin province, said on Tuesday that 5,000 fighters from the security forces and the Popular Mobilisation – formed last year with Iranian support after the rout of the army – would join “the operation to liberate Tikrit”.
Witnesses said the militants had yesterday blocked three main entrances to the south, west and north of Tikrit with 4-metre concrete blast walls.
The witnesses saw a stream of SUV vehicles, apparently containing detainees, heading north towards the northern, ISIL-controlled city of Mosul.
* Agence France-Presse, Reuters