As a powerful coalition of forces converges on Mosul in what promises to be a fierce battle to retake ISIS’ Iraqi stronghold, some players inside the black-clad jihadist army are delivering many of the most damaging blows.
(FOX)- Beleaguered and disenfranchised ISIS fighters, cultivated for months by the Kurds, are secretly working with their adversaries, supplying key intelligence on the terror group’s positioning inside Iraq’s second-largest city and its battle strategy for the surrounding region.
“I will give you more money for information,” one senior Kurdish intelligence and security leader recently stated calmly over his cell phone from a safe house in Kirkuk, as the city outside exploded with sniper fire and suicide bombers in a recent attack aimed at diverting coalition forces from Mosul. “But remember that if you lie, if you give me wrong information, we will find you wherever you are and we will get you.”
The official was talking to one of his sources within the ranks of ISIS, piecing together information on where ISIS cells may strike next. The furtive conversation witnessed by FoxNews.com was no anomaly, and Kurds, in particular, are making use of agents behind enemy lines.
Many high-ranking soldiers scattered across various units of the Kurdish Peshmerga have nurtured and developed key contacts within ISIS, a strategy begun immediately after ISIS overran Mosul and surrounding villages in the summer of 2014.
“We have a mixture of some working for ISIS intelligence and others who are in a fighting role,” one soldier explained over dinner, glancing out onto the rubble-strewn streets of a liberated Northern Iraq village.
When the discussion moved to the topic of attacks brewing in the nearby ISIS-held city of Tel Afar, he immediately demonstrated his reach.