TOUGH TIMES: Iraqi forces ride an armored personnel carrier near Al-Alam village, northeast of Tikrit, during an operation to regain control of the area from the Islamic State group. (AFP)
Islamic State militants in Libya seized a group of foreigners at the Al-Ghani oil field last week, a spokesman for the Austrian Foreign Ministry said citing “secure information” on Monday, adding that they were alive when taken.
There has been no sign since of the nine oil workers from Austria, the Czech republic, Bangladesh, the Philippines and at least one African country who went missing, the spokesman said.
“We know that they were not injured when they were transported away from the Al-Ghani oil field,” the spokesman said, adding Austria had information the group was taken by Islamic State militants.
Bangladesh on Monday confirmed one of its citizens was among the foreign workers taken hostage by Islamic State, calling the incident a kidnapping.
The nine foreigners worked for oil field management company Value Added Oilfield Services. The company said it did not know which militia group was responsible for the incident and said it would not publish the names of its employees. “We are working in very close cooperation with the crises team of the Austrian foreign ministry,” VAOS said in an e-mailed statement, adding it did not know where its employees had been taken.
Separately, the group executed 20 people who wanted to fight against them in the northern Iraqi province of Kirkuk, officials said on Monday.
The killings of the men, who wanted to join anti-IS paramilitary forces known as Popular Mobilization units, took place in the town of Hawijah, a police intelligence officer and two local officials said.
The executions could not be independently confirmed, but a gruesome series of photos posted online and shared on social media are evidence that they took place. The photos show the bodies of more than a dozen different men strung by their feet from light poles, what appears to be a communications or electricity tower, and under a massive sign featuring the IS flag and name.
Captions under the photos said the men were members of the Popular Mobilization units and used a derogatory term that could either refer to the units’ Shiite leadership, or indicate that the men were believed to be Shiites.
Meanwhile, a German woman fighting alongside Kurdish forces in Syria was killed over the weekend in clashes with the Islamic State group, Kurdish officials said on Monday.
The woman, Ivana Hoffmann, was killed in a village near the town of Tel Tamr in northeastern Syria, Kurdish official Nasir Haj Mansour said. She had joined female Kurdish fighting units, known as the YPJ, two to three months ago, he said.
Nawaf Khalil, a spokesman for the Kurdish PYD party in Europe, confirmed she had died over the weekend.