The local police in Ninewa province said in a statement on June 14 it has arrested the killer of an Ezidi (Yazidi) activist killed on June 30 south of Ninewa province.
Jamil Suleiman was one of the activists who called for the withdrawal of all armed groups from the war-torn Ezidi region of Shingal (Sinjar), except the local police as part of the Iraqi Security Forces ISF.
"After the formation of a team of expert officers and continuous investigation, in collaboration with the forensic medicine directorate and the crime fighting directorate, the killer was arrested," the police said in a statement.
"The killer was arrested in the same area where the citizen was killed and confessed to the crime," the statement declared, without giving any further details about the cause and motive of the murder.
"The Killer" of Jamil Suleiman, the Ezidi activist, according to Ninewa police
Following his murder, Saeed Shamo, a member of the Independent Yazidi Youth Group and Jamil Suleiman's uncle's son, told KirkukNow, “Jamil did not harm anyone. He has served Shingal and its people more than serving his own family.”
“I want to announce that a group close to the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS) have threatened the independent Yazidi youth group and Jamil also has been threatened, but we do not know who killed him yet.”
The Independent Yazidi Youth Group, of which Jamil was a member, have been demanding an end to the fighting between the Iraqi forces and the armed groups, withdrawal of all armed groups from the district except the local police, and the establishment of an independent administration.
The group, which has more than 50 members, has been demonstrating since last May every evening at the center of Shingal and Sinuny to express their protests in various ways to resolve the situation in their war-torn region.
They have announced a temporary suspension of its public peaceful gatherings at a press conference on June 18, after that the tribal chiefs of the region gave the Shingal Resistance Units (YBŞ), a group headed by the autonomous council, several days to leave the town.
Shingal, west of Mosul, after the expulsion of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters, is going through an unstable security situation and direct confrontations between different armed groups in the region, each trying to impose its domination over the district.
According to the Shingal police, in 2022, four civilians were killed.
The volunteer group was formed after fighting between the Iraqi army and the Shingal Resistance Units (YBŞ), a group affiliated to Kurdistan Workers Party PKK, which fights Turkey since 1980s and holds territories in Iraq, in May this year, which claimed casualties from both, while more than 800 families were displaced.
At the early hours of May 2nd, troops of the Iraqi army with heavy weapons supported by warplanes attacked two points of pro-PKK Ezidkhan Asayish (Security), part of Yabasha or YBS, in Sinuny. Two were killed and 12 were injured from both sides, sources affirmed to KirkukNow.
In the Ezidi-dominant region of Shingal, only three thousand square kilometers, Baghdad federal and Erbil regional governments compete to establish their rule following the claimed defeat of IS in 2017: three local administrations want to administer the district, and eight different armed groups are deployed.
There are more than eight different armed groups within the borders of Shingal district, including the pro-Shiite paramilitary of Popular Mobilization Forces PMF, Ezidikhan Asayish, YBS, Women Protection Units YPZh, the local police, the federal police, the Iraqi army, the Ezidkhan Peshmerga and the KRG Peshmerga (Kurdish fighter) forces.
