ISIS releases more than 200 Yazidis, Kurdish officials say

ISIS on Wednesday released more than 200 Yazidis, a minority group whose members were killed, captured and displaced when the Islamist terror organization overtook their towns in northern Iraq last summer, officials said.

Most of those released were women and children; the rest were ill or elderly, said Rassol Omar, a commander in the Peshmerga force that defends northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

Omar didn't say what led to the release, other than asserting that Arab tribal leaders helped to coordinate it.

The freed Yazidis were received by Peshmerga, who sent them to the Kurdish regional capital, Irbil, said Nuri Osman, an official with Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government. It wasn't immediately clear what motivated Wednesday's release, Osman said.

Osman said 217 Yazidis were released. Omar, the Peshmerga commander, had a higher count: 228.

ISIS previously released scores of other Yazidis -- largely children and the elderly -- since attacking the group's towns last year.