Ansar al-Islam group kills Sardasht Othman – committee

ARBIL / IraqiNews.com: The investigation committee on the assassination of Journalist Sardasht Othman announced on Wednesday the arrest of a member of the Ansar al-Islam armed group, who underlined that he took part in killing the journalist as he refused to work with the group. “Asayesh forces arrested Hesham Mahmoud Islamil, a Kurd, from Baiji city, north of Tikrit, with the participation of security forces,” a source from the committee told IraqiNews.com news agency. He confessed to taking part in the assassination of Othman as he refused to cooperate with the group. Ansar al-Islam is a militant armed group that had been founded in December 2001 and has links with Al-Qaeda Organization. The group has been included on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations. Its headquarters in a bumpy mountainous areas in Iraqi Kurdistan region, near the borders with Iran, have come under intensive U.S. air raids during the ouster of the Saddam Hussein regime in March 2003. Sardasht Othman 23,The second independent Kurdish journalist assassinated within two years in Kurdistan region of Iraq. He was publishing his critical articles of the officials in Kurdistan under various nicknames in the websites, magazines, newspaper such as Kurdistanpost, Lvin, Hawlaty, Peace leeters, Tomorrow…etc. He was a student in the University as well. After he received threats of killing he was kidnapped from the university in Arbil On 3rd of may 2010 and 3 days later his body was found in Mosul city. SH (S) 3