Overweight ISIS preacher captured

Twitter/AliBaroodi

A well-known ISIS preacher was captured by Iraqi police, but he was apparently so overweight he had to be taken away in the back of a truck.

Shifa al-Nima was captured in the Mansour neighborhood of Mosul by the Nineveh police command, according to Iraqi police.

Police said he incited extremist ideology and pledged allegiance to ISIS during their control of Mosul.

Pictures posted to social media appear to show al-Nima being put in the back of a pickup truck by Iraqi forces.

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A well-known ISIS preacher was captured by police forces in Iraq on Thursday, but he was so overweight he had to be carried away in the back of a truck.

Police in Iraq posted a tweet on Thursday announcing that Shifa al-Nima was captured in the Mansour neighborhood in Mosul by the Nineveh police command.

Recent photos that appear to show extremely overweight of al-Nima started to circulate on Twitter, including one that shows him slumped in the back of what appears to be a police pickup after his arrest

Insider has not been able to independently verify that the pictures show al-Nima or the moment of his capture.

The tweet was posted by Ali al-Baroodi, a teacher and translator in Mosul who says the ISIS preacher, also known as a mufti, gave sermons in his neighborhood and "cheered" when the Prophet Jonah Mosque was blown up in the early days of ISIS control.

According to the Iraqi police, al-Nima was working as a preacher in a number of mosques around the city that were inciting extremist ideology and pledging allegiance to ISIS during their control of Mosul.

He was also accused of being responsible for issuing fatwas — a form of non-binding religious decree — related to the execution of a number of Islamic scholars who refused to join ISIS, and for the bombing of the Mosque of the Prophet Jonah, an ancient cultural site revered by Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

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