- Shifa al-Nima, who weighs 136kg, said to be a ‘foremost leader’ of the terror group
- Fatwa by the preacher had led to the bombing of the Tomb of Jonah, one of Mosul’s most well-known shrines, Iraqi police say
An obese Islamic State (Isis) preacher, reported to be one of the militant group's foremost leaders, was captured in Iraq on Thursday.
Shifa al-Nima, who weighs 136kg, was arrested by the elite SWAT regiment of the Nineveh police command in the northern city of Mosul, The Jerusalem Post reported.
Nima, considered one of the biggest captures in recent months, was plucked from his hideout in Mosul by the security forces.
He was so heavy that he had to be loaded onto the back of a truck to be transferred to prison. Photos posted online showed him wedged between a mounted machine gun and the back of the vehicle.
According to the Iraqi police, the preacher's fatwas, or religious edicts, had led to the bombing of an ancient mosque.
"He is considered one of the foremost leaders of Isis and was responsible for issuing fatwas that led to the murder of scholars and clerics," Iraqi police said.
Nima issued a fatwa to bomb the Tomb of Jonah, one of Mosul's well-known shrines, which was built on what is regarded as the burial site of the biblical prophet known in the Koran as Yunus.
"Islamic State completely destroyed the shrine of Nabi Yunus (the Prophet Jonah) after telling local families to stay away and closing the roads at a distance of 500 metres from the shrine," said an official in 2014.
The image of Nima being taken into custody by Iraqi forces was a "psychological blow" to Isis, British activist Maajid Nawaz said.
"Today was a good day for the force and a bad day for evil," he said.
Isis fighters swept into Iraq in the summer of 2014, taking control of nearly a third of the country. At the height of the group's power its self-proclaimed caliphate stretched from the edges of Aleppo in Syria to just north of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.
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