17-year-old arrested in Qurban Group probe after suicides and online targeting

Shafaq News/ On Wednesday, a security source reported that confessions from members of the banned Qurban group, known for self-sacrifice, led to the arrest of a 17-year-old boy in Al-Karama town of Muthanna Governorate, southern Iraq.

This deviant group worships Imam Ali and conducts a ritual where they draw lots to select someone as an offering.

The source told Shafaq News Agency that "the boy is being interrogated to determine his connection to the group and his involvement in its suspicious activities."

Notably, the Qurban group, or "Al-Ali al-Alahiya," emerged in several places in Iraq.

On August 4, 2024, the Maysan Governorate in southern Iraq reported multiple suicides and electronic targeting of women by the Qurban group.

"The group is targeting women online, leading to the recent suicides of two sisters in their twenties and thirties in the governorate's center, one of whom was married with children," the source told Shafaq News Agency.

Maysan Police Chief Maj. Gen. Lafta al-Muhammadawi announced, "10 members of the Qurban group, an intellectually deviant movement, were dismantled and arrested in the governorate."

"Recent suicide cases among young people in the governorate and nearby regions prompted the creation of a specialized team to investigate and gather information on emerging movements," Al-Muhammadawi reported.

A year earlier, a local source in Dhi Qar told Shafaq News Agency that the group had caused panic in the community by committing suicide by hanging in a Husseini procession.

Notably, the extremist group was formed during the lifetime of the late religious leader Mohammed Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, who disassociated himself from them.

None of the Shia religious references (marjaʿ) adopt this group.