American pastor partners with underground rescuers in Iraq to liberate ISIS captives

An American pastor, who has visited Iraq multiple times, has joined forces with an underground network of smugglers in order to help people escape from the Islamic State.

For the past year, Bill Devlin, a pastor at Infinity Bible Church in the Bronx, has been aiding the underground network set up by Yazidi lawyer Khaleel Khaleel al-Dakhi, his wife, Ameena Saeed Hasan, and their other colleagues.

The smugglers meet the enslaved girls at an arranged time and place and lead them through ISIS territory so that they would have the best chance of escaping undetected.

Devlin told The Christian Post that he first partnered with the network last April when he donated around $1,500 to help liberate the female relatives of a displaced Yazidi husband and son. The pastor provided funds for more rescue missions when he returned to Iraq in August and December.

"I was introduced to them about two years ago and when I went back last April 2016, I had dinner in their home. They asked me, 'Would you be interested in rescuing Yazidi girls and women from ISIS?' I said, 'Absolutely, I'm in,'" he said.

Devlin stated that he was compelled to get involved because he has three daughters of his own. He said he would want someone to help him if his daughters were captured by terrorists.

Hasan said she is grateful for private donors like Devlin because sometimes there are families who are not able to pay for the costs of smuggling missions. The Kurdish government provides some of the funding, but families often have to raise the money themselves.

"If we wait [for the funds], maybe the girl will lose her opportunity to be rescued. When I send [Pastor Devlin] a message, he helps," said Hasan. "He helped us many times. One week ago, he sent $1,000 and before that, he again sent $1,000. Many times he has helped," he added.

The rescue missions often put the smugglers and guides in risky situations, and at least three smugglers associated with the network have been killed or executed by ISIS.

Devlin said that he has lined up American donors who are willing to fund the efforts to rescue more captives. He maintained that the network uses the funds to reimburse costs for the rescuers, not to pay ransom to ISIS.

In September, The Christian Post reported that Devlin spent $4,000 of his own money to buy weapons for the Nineveh Plain Protection Units, a militia that is largely made up of Assyrian Christians who want to reclaim and defend their homelands from ISIS.