Feuds Over Power, Money and Women Destroy ISIL From the Inside - Kurds

At least 50 members of the Islamic State in Iraq have died recently due to internal feuds over authority, money and women, the press secretary of Iraq's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) said Thursday, as cited by local media.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Said Mammousine, speaking with Iran’s Al Alam news network, attributed the recent deaths in ISIL to "the seizure of funds, distribution of women," and retreat from the Kurdish Peshmerga forces.

"The splits began to threaten the ranks of the group, especially among local and foreign militants," the KDP spokesman said.

He pointed to the divide between ISIL leader Abu Bakr Baghdadi’s two aides – Abu Omar Shishani, who oversees the foreign fighters, and Abu Muslim Turkmani, an Iraqi national.

Mammousine added that Baghdadi recently sent a letter to the leaders of the group in Mosul, in which he criticized "the occurrence of strife between Daash [Arabic name for ISIL] militants."

Earlier in the week, the KDP official had attributed the deaths of 33 ISIL fighters to the same reasons.

ISIL is an extremist group, notorious for its human rights atrocities, that has seized large parts of Iraq and Syria over the past three years. On Wednesday, a UN envoy to Iraq said that the group still controls one-third of the country, a year on from its original capture.

According to various estimates, ISIL controls a territory that stretches to up to 34,000 square miles. The jihadist group has declared a so-called caliphate in the areas under its control. Western intelligence agencies estimate that the group has about 30,000-50,000 members, while Kurdish officials have quoted figures as high as a quarter of a million.