Unknown attackers break Islamic State’s “crocodile jaws” in Kirkuk

Unknown assailants have badly wounded an Islamic State female vigilante in southwestern Kirkuk in an apparent revenge for abuses against civilians by the group’s religious observants.

A local source told Alsumaria News on Wednesday that unknown attackers broke the teeth of one of Islamic State’s “biters” in Hawija, the group’s major stronghold in southwestern Kirkuk.

Islamic State militants had appointed a women vigilantism division whose members would brutally bite the hands of civilian females who violated the group’s extremist modesty code.

According to the source, the woman, famously known in the town as “crocodile jaws”, was ambushed on her way out her house, and sustained serious facial wounds.

“That woman had bitten more than 200 women. She is from Mosul and had worked with the group for three years,” the source said.

Hawija and other neighboring areas in southwest Kirkuk have been under Islamic State control since 2014, when the group emerged to proclaim an Islamic “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria. The group executed dozens of civilians and security members there, forcing thousands to flee homes.

Local tribal leaders and politicians from Kirkuk have mounted pressure on the Iraqi government to hasten with invading Hawija, suggesting that its people were experiencing a humanitarian crisis under the group’s rule. The Iraqi government is currently employing the largest portion of its military effort in Mosul, IS’s capital in Iraq where the group is reportedly cornered in a few square kilometers. It is expected that security forces will aim at other Islamic State enclaves in the country once the campaign in Mosul ends victoriously.

Source: /Iraqi News