Isis fighter filmed saying 'don't worry, I won't blow myself up' as he surrenders to Kurdish forces
Peshmerga fighters have taken Bashiqa, eight miles north-east of Mosul, in an ongoing operation to free the occupied city
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Your support makes all the difference.A tense video of an Isis militant promising not to detonate explosives as he surrenders to Kurdish troops in Iraq has been released online.
"Don't be afraid. I won't blow myself up" the soldier is heard saying, as he emerges from a house near Mosul and is apprehended by anxious Peshmerga fighters.
The video was shared on social media on Monday by Rudaw Television, a Kurdish news channel, who said they were handed the footage by Kurdish forces in Bashiqa, in northern Iraq.
The video, which is believed to have been shot on 8 November, shows a group of Kurdish soldiers trying to persuade a hiding ISIS fighter to come out of a building and give himself up.
“We won't kill you. Come out," one solider yells to the enemy militant. “Come, your friends are with me. They've surrendered. His name is Hazim Minuh. Abu Mustafa is also with us.”
But when a man walks out and heads directly towards the group, they panic, shouting at him to turn around and pull up his shirt to prove he is not wearing an explosive suicide vest or belt.
When they see he is not carrying any weapons, they grab him by the wrists and march him out of the courtyard.
The prisoner can be heard saying in Arabic: “Inside there are three or four. They are still alive. They don't want to surrender.”
Last week, Iraqi Kurdish forces recaptured Bashiqa, a town eight miles north-east of the outskirts of Mosul, which is said to have been largely deserted except for dozens of Isis fighters.
The offensive to reclaim the town is part of a broader push to drive Isis out of Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, and free those living under occupation from Isis brutality, which has included mass killings.
Kurdish peshmerga fighters say they have found a network of tunnels used by Isis jihadists before they were driven out of the town.
Major General Iskandar Hajji, a local peshmerga commander, told AFP: “IS fighters are protecting themselves from coalition air strikes by hiding in the tunnels.
”We have a problem with these tunnels - we can't do anything except wait for them to come out so we can fight them.“
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