Gunmen kidnap Kurd, 2 Shabaks in Mosul

NINEWA / IraqiNews.com: A kurd and two Shabaks were kidnapped on Tuesday by gunmen in western Mosul, according to a security source. “An unknown armed group kidnapped a Kurd and two Shabaks on Tuesday afternoon in al-Maash market in western Mosul,” the source told IraqiNews.com news agency. The Shabak people is a minority group of Kurdish origin who live mainly in the villages of Ali Rash, Khazna, Yangidja and Tallara in Sinjar district in the province of Ninewa, northern Iraq. Their language, Shabaki, is a Northwestern Iranian language, belonging to Zaza-Gorani group, and similar to Kurdish with many borrowings from Turkish, Persian and Arabic. They are scattered in 35 villages located in the east of Mosul. Their population was estimated at around 15,000 in the 1970s. A large part of the Shabaks follow an independent religion, related to but distinct from Islam. It contains elements of Islam, as well as Christianity and other religions. Mosul, the capital of Ninewa, lies 405 km north of Baghdad. SH (TS) 607