250 Militants within Daesh ranks killed: Officials

Some 250 Kurdish militants fighting for the Takfiri terrorist group, Daesh, have been killed while fighting for the outfit, Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) says.

Mariwan Naqshbandi, a spokesman for the KRG’s Ministry of Endowment and Religious Affairs, announced the figure in an interview with the Arabic-language al-Sumaria satellite television on Wednesday.

Around 500 Kurds joined Daesh when members of the militant group overran the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, situated some 400 kilometers (248 miles) north of the capital, Baghdad, back in June 2014, the spokesman added.

He said that nearly 100 Kurdish militants have defected from Daesh and returned to the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, stressing that some of them are currently being held in detention while the rest were set free after being interrogated.