ERBIL, Iraq — An American fighting for Islamic State was taken into custody in northern Iraq after he left territory controlled by the militant group, according to two Kurdish officers, one of whom arrested him.
Both said it appeared the man was intending to escape both Islamic State and Kurdish forces but handed himself in after peshmerga fighters opened fire on him near the frontline in the village of Golat.
Capt. Daham Khalaf said they had spotted the fighter hiding in long grass around dawn and waited until the sun rose before surrounding him: “He shouted: ‘I am a foreigner,’” Khalaf said, describing him as bearded and dressed in black.
The fighter did not have a passport but was carrying an American driver’s license and spoke English and broken Arabic, according to Gen. Hashim Sitei, who spoke to him.
A copy of what was said to be the license, seen by Reuters, was in the name of Khweis Mohammed Jamal.
“He said the situation with ISIS is not good,” Sitei said, noting the fighter appeared tired.
“We gave him food and treated him with respect and handed him over to military intelligence,” he said.
The fighter was unarmed but carrying three mobile phones and said his father was Palestinian and his mother from the Mosul area in Iraq, both officers said. Khalaf said he also had a bank card and cash in Iraqi, Turkish and U.S. currencies.
“He said: ‘No one take my photo,’ but we did,” Khalaf said.
The U.S. State Department said it was aware of the reports that a U.S. citizen said to have been fighting for Islamic State was captured by Kurdish peshmerga forces in northern Iraq.
“We are in touch with Iraqi and Kurdish authorities to determine the veracity of these reports,” a State Department official in Washington said on the condition of anonymity.