Eli Lake, Bloomberg: Kurdish Intelligence Chief Says Deadly Raid Freed Baathists
Last month's raid on an Islamic State prison in Hawija, Iraq, conducted by a U.S. Delta Force Team and Kurdish special forces resulted not only in the death of the first American in the country since 2011 and the beheading of four Kurds by the jihadists. According to a Kurdish intelligence chief, it also ended up freeing scores of the former tormentors of his people: Iraqis still loyal to the Baathist ideology of Saddam Hussein. And it has exacerbated new political divisions among the Kurds, who have been the U.S.'s best allies in the fight against the Islamic State.
Initially the raid was said to have freed 69 Kurdish prisoners. But within 24 hours the Kurdistan Regional Government officially said no Kurds were freed. At the Washington Institute for Near East Policy on Tuesday, Lahur Talabani, the head of the Kurdish Zanyari intelligence service, said the raid instead ended up freeing Arab members of the Naqshbandi Army, a Baathist group formed of former high-ranking intelligence and military officers loyal to Saddam Hussein.
WNU Editor: This commentary sheds light on the deep divisions among the Kurdish forces and their political parties. A depressing read .... how can they defeat the Islamic State when they are bitterly divided amongst themselves.
4 comments:
Somebody got had, big time.
So what at the end of the daythere's bound to be good and current intell when they intertogated.
Dont tell me they just let them go?
The fault lies with the kurds not the , if they didnt know who was held how the hell was the u.s meant to
"Moderate" Iraqis?
Kurdish HUMINT probably identified the presence of the Prison and the "imminent" executions,
U.S. Satellite and SIGINT probably identified which building was the prison and the ISIS defences.
That many of the prisoners were Naquishbandi Army, prior to the raid, was one of those unknowns in war, but could be used to help leverage the Sunni Awakening to come onside in both the fight against ISIS and Al Quida, but a greater reconciliation between the Sunni, Kurds and Shia.
As the Nasqubandi Army is Sufi, they are considered apostates and heretics by ISIS.
Post a Comment