Awat Wahab Hamasalih

Awat Wahab Hamasalih, also known as Awat Karkuky, Awat Karkuki, or Kerkuky, is an Iraqi Kurd who moved to the UK in 2002. He became a British citizen in 2008 and resided in Birmingham. Since 2009 he was a senior member of the sovereign commission of Rawti Shax, alongside Makwan, Tofan, and Haji Forat. He assisted Mullah Krekar in the organization and leadership of the commission and, together with Makwan, took over the group’s direction during Krekar’s detention.
During Krekar’s imprisonment, he helped reorganize Rawti Shax by establishing a private subdivision called Arabic Aynda within the “Kurdistan Kurd u Islam DiDiNwe” chatroom. This platform was used for internal communication among the group’s leadership and for making strategic decisions, shielding Rawti Shax’s restructuring from external oversight and ensuring its continued operations. Between March and April 2012, following Krekar’s arrest, he and Makwan led meetings of Paltalk chat administrators, where they set the group’s new directives.
On behalf of Rawti Shax, Karkuky maintained ties with extremists from radical circles and traveled across Europe to distribute Sharia University Ibn Taymiyyah books and collect funds for the organization’s objectives. He managed the websites DidiNwe.net and Durbeen.org, which served as communication hubs for Rawti Shax members and the broader Islamic extremist community. These platforms disseminated jihadist materials, recruited followers, and secured financial resources, using online networks as the group’s virtual base and operational infrastructure.
He was also responsible for coordinating a movement of Kurdish individuals across Europe through Rawti Shax’s network of cells. Within the group’s hierarchy, Mullah Krekar designated him as a military commander for operations in Kurdistan, assigning him the task of securing and controlling territories to be conquered. Acting on directives issued by Krekar from prison, Karkuky publicly affirmed his allegiance to the Islamic State as part of Rawti Shax’s broader alignment with ISIS.
He was found to have run an active campaign for IS, spreading propaganda, delivering speeches, and using social media and crowdfunding to support the group. He also tipped off an IS commander in Iraq about an imminent attack and possessed a military document identifying Peshmerga fighters.
Also, he was a key target in Operation JWEB, a counterterrorism investigation led by the Italian Carabinieri ROS in collaboration with European authorities. On July 15, 2019, the Court of Assizes of Bolzano convicted him and others for international terrorism, a ruling upheld on July 18, 2020. He was sentenced to nine years in prison. In 2022, the Italian Supreme Court confirmed the conviction for jihadist terrorism.