Iraqis Identify Prisoner as Chinese Islamist Fighter
Source: New York Times
BEIJING The Iraqi Defense Ministry has posted on its Facebook page photographs that it says show a captured Chinese man who was fighting on behalf of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the Sunni jihadist group.
Iraqi officials have not released further details, but the photographs, if confirmed, would be the first visual evidence of a Chinese citizen fighting with ISIS, which has members from around the world, including the United States. Both the leader of ISIS and a Chinese diplomat said this summer that Chinese fighters had joined ISIS.
The first of the Defense Ministrys photographs, posted on Monday, shows an Iraqi soldier holding up a muscular, Asian-looking man with a severely bruised and bloodied face. The man is wearing an olive-green camouflage T-shirt, pants, black gloves and an armband with white Arabic lettering on a black background.
A second photograph shows the man curled on rocks on the ground, with cuts and scrapes visible on his stomach and left elbow.
Arabic text accompanying the photographs says Chinese Daash, using what is roughly an Arabic acronym for ISIS, which prefers to call itself the Islamic State.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/05/world/middleeast/iraqis-identify-prisoner-as-chinese-islamist-fighter.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id&bicmst=1409232722000&bicmet=1419773522000
CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)probably facilitated by social media.