An American man was reportedly detained Monday by Kurdish Peshmerga militia in northern Iraq as he was trying to enter Turkey. The man is suspected of being an ISIS defector, reports said.
Two Kurdish Peshmerga military sources told CBS News they detained a man who claimed to be a resident of Viriginia, U.S. He claimed to have defected from ISIS after working for the terrorist organisation for a few months. He also said his father was Palestinian and mother was from Mosul in Iraq.
Muhammad Jamal Amin, 27, was caught at a checkpoint near Sinjar, a town in Iraq. The Peshmerga fired warning shots at the man suspecting him to be a suicide bomber. However, he confessed to be a defector from ISIS, according to CBS News.
He apparently had an American passport in his possession, Reuters reported. He had bank cards and other documents to support his claim regarding his identity, CBS News reported local media as saying.
The man had emerged from ISIS-controlled territory and mistook the area for the Turkish border, RT quoted a local commander telling Kurdish media.
Kurdistan Regional Government's security council is investigating the man, CNN reported a Kurdish official as saying.
The Kurdistan Regional Government controls the area bordering Syria, Turkey and Iran.
