Kurdistan Counter-Terror clarifies on Saudi children rescued from ISIS captivity

Kurdistan Region’s Counter-Terror Unit issued a clarification on Thursday about the rescue and repatriation of two Saudi children who were taken into the Islamic State (IS) by their father.

The clarification came after al-Arabiya news channel reported that the children had been taken from Syria to Turkey and then to Saudi Arabia.

Kurdistan Region Counter-Terror Unit said the children (Abdullah Nasir Abdullah,15, and Ahmed Nasir Abdullah, 12) were taken by their father for a tour to Turkey in 2014 and then he joined IS and crossed the border into Syria.

The father was killed almost a month after joining IS, and the two brothers were in the care of an old man, reads the statement.

On 26 March this year, the two children arrived at the Pishkhabour border crossing between the Kurdistan Region and Syrian Kurdistan. They were taken in by the Counter-Terror Unit and handed over to Saudi Arabia consulate in Erbil.

“Contrary to the report by al-Arabiya news channel, the repatriation of the two Saudi children was via Kurdistan Region and with the help of Counter-Terror Unit, and it has nothing to do with Turkey,” the statement concluded.

Source: Basnews