As the fighting in Mosul has started, some ISIS militants have been trying to make a fast getaway. Not a bad idea when you consider the atrocities they’ve committed and the size of the force lining up to drive them out.
According to the British newspaper The Sun, though, some of these militants have been trying to escape under the radar by dressing as women. For at least two of them, though, it didn’t work out – Kurdish peshmerga fighters saw through the disguise and nabbed them.
Kristina Dei, the founder and director of Go Global Media, posted a photo of the two ISIS fighters on Twitter .
#ISIS dressed as women, caught by #peshmergas near #Mosul as they flee the #Mosul_Offensive captured in #Khazir pic.twitter.com/3ueNu3p0OC
— Kristina Dei (@2kdei) October 19, 2016
This is an old play. In 2015, the blog Gateway Pundit released a collection of pictures showing terrorists who were caught while dressed in women’s clothing. In 2008, FoxNews.com reported that a Taliban commander in Afghanistan was disguised as a woman when he was killed in a firefight with American troops. A 2008 release by the United States Army and a 2004 release by the Marine Corps noted that during Operation Iraqi Freedom, insurgents were known to dress as women. Such tactics were also seen in Afghanistan, as a 2011 release by the Virginia National Guard mentioned.
The tactic sometimes worked, as a 2009 article by the New York Daily News described how some Taliban insurgents were able to slip away from Marines. Items of clothing like the burqa also were used to hide weapons and explosives.