A News Aggregator That Covers The World's Major Wars And Conflicts. Military, Political, And Intelligence News Are Also Covered. Occasionally We Will Have Our Own Opinions Or Observations To Make.
As decades-old battle intensifies, civilians count cost in lives and livelihoods
It took 10 days to find Muhsin Speri’s body. The 64-year-old had left his town in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan along with friends Hassan Sadiq and Safar Sini on a dry, windy day in December last year to fish and forage for wild honey and mushrooms.
Life in the Amedi region of the Zagros mountains is hard and physical, but the area has been home to Kurdish and Assyrian communities in sync with the rhythms of the mountains for thousands of years. Many locals like to roam and camp for several days at a time, but after Speri’s family failed to reach him by phone for more than a week, a search party was launched.
The bodies of the three former peshmerga soldiers were found in the Zeri valley, torn to pieces by what is believed to have been a Turkish drone strike. Sadiq and Sini appeared to have been killed instantly, but Speri was found nearly 100 metres away, a trail of blood in his wake.
Ankara says NATO allies decided on a timetable and method for withdrawal of Kurdish fighters from the city.
Turkey and the United States agreed on a plan on the withdrawal of Kurdish fighters considered "terrorists" by Ankara from the northern Syrian city of Manbij.
The agreement was reached during a meeting between Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Washington, DC, on Monday.
The two sides agreed on a joint work to end a bilateral dispute over the presence of the People's Protection Units (YPG) troops in Manbij.
“Our main supporters are based in Iran,” said Hussein Yadanpanah, leader of the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK).
Kurds in Iran, who have long complained of oppression and neglect of their region at the hands of the regime, have played an important role in the protests in the country, said Hussein Yadanpanah, leader of the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK). “We do expect the US and the international community to support us.”
Yazdanpanah and his Kurdish group live in exile in northern Iraq and have played a key role in the war against the Islamic State for the last three years alongside Kurdish Peshmerga. He has served as a frontline general commanding his fighters in battles near Hawija and Bashiqa in northern Iraq.
WNU Editor: There are approximately 7 million Iranian Kurds. And while I am not surprised to be reading reports that they are now protesting against the Iranian government, this should not be viewed solely as a sectarian protest against the Mullahs in Tehran. This is more than that, and to succeed all of Iran's ethnic groups must find common ground in the coming days/weeks if they want to succeed in their push for reforms.
ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey, Iran and Iraq have agreed to consider counter-measures against Kurdish northern Iraq over a planned independence referendum, Turkey’s foreign ministry said on Thursday.
In a joint statement, the foreign ministers of the three countries voiced concerns that the referendum would endanger the gains Iraq has made against Islamic State, and reiterated their fears over the potential for new conflicts in the region.
“In the meeting, the three ministers emphasized that the referendum will not be beneficial for the Kurds and the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), and agreed, in this regard, to consider taking counter-measures in coordination,” the statement said.
WNU Editor: The rallies in the Kurdish cities are massive. It is too late to stop this .... in the minds of many Kurds they are not on the verge of having their own nation state .... they are just making it official. My biggest fear is that this will now lead to war .... a sectarian conflict that will easily engulf the countries of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan makes a speech during the re-opening of the Ottoman-era Yildiz Hamidiye mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, August 4, 2017. Picture taken August 4, 2017. Murad Sezer, Reuters
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Days after a reshuffle of Turkey's top military commanders, President Tayyip Erdogan has revived warnings of military action against Kurdish fighters in Syria that could set back the U.S.-led battle against Islamic State.
Kurdish militia are spearheading an assault against the hardline militants in their Syrian stronghold Raqqa, from where Islamic State has planned attacks around the world for the past three years.
But U.S. backing for the Kurdish YPG fighters in Syria has infuriated Turkey, which views their growing battlefield strength as a security threat due to a decades-old insurgency by the Kurdish PKK within in its borders.
There have been regular exchanges of rocket and artillery fire in recent weeks between Turkish forces and YPG fighters who control part of Syria's northwestern border.
Kurdish fighters from the People's Protection Units (YPG) walk along a street in the southeast of Qamishli city, Syria, April 22, 2016. REUTERS/Rodi Said/File Photo
Russia is setting up a military base in northwestern Syria in agreement with the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia and will help train its fighters, the YPG said, a step likely to anger Turkey as it tries to block Kurdish gains in the north of the country.
There was no immediate comment from Russia or Turkey.
One of the major forces in the Syrian conflict, the YPG is also a military ally of the United States and is playing a major part in U.S.-backed operations against Islamic State in areas of Syria further to the east.
YPG spokesman Redur Xelil told Reuters the agreement had been concluded on Sunday and that Russian troops had already arrived at the position in the northwestern region of Afrin with troop carriers and armored vehicles. "It is the first (agreement) of its kind," he said in a written message. Read more....
* Foreign Minister Cavusoglu says Manbij next after Al Bab win
* Minister says Syrian Kurdish militants should leave Manbij now
Turkey vowed to capture a Syrian town if the U.S. doesn’t clear out the Kurdish fighters who control it, signaling its patience has worn thin over Washington’s backing of the militia -- a partner in the campaign against Islamic State.
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters in Ankara that the town of Manbij was the next target for Turkish troops and their rebel allies in Syria once they take full control of the border town of Al-Bab from Islamic State militants. The strategy aligns with Ankara’s objectives when it sent its army into Syria in August: to quash the radical Sunni group -- and to keep Syrian Kurdish forces from linking up with Kurdish PKK separatists in Turkey.
Kurdish Y.P.G. fighters last year during a battle for Tel Tamer, Syria, at their combat outpost on the outskirts of the city. Credit Mauricio Lima for The New York Times
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is weighing a military plan to directly arm Syrian Kurdish fighters combating the Islamic State, a major policy shift that could speed up the offensive against the terrorist group but also sharply escalate tensions between Turkey and the United States.
The plan has been under discussion by the National Security Council staff at a moment when President Obama has directed aides to examine all proposals that could accelerate the fight against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. Mr. Obama has told aides that he wants an offensive well underway before he leaves office that is aimed at routing the Islamic State from Raqqa, the group’s de facto capital in northern Syria.
Deciding whether to arm the Syrian Kurds is a difficult decision for Mr. Obama, who is caught in the middle trying to balance the territorial and political ambitions of Turkey and the Syrian Kurds, two warring American allies that Washington needs to combat the Islamic insurgency.
WNU Editor: This is not going to go over well with Turkey who have just accused Kurdish YPG fighters of war crimes .... Turkey accuses Kurdish YPG of crimes at UN(Kurdistan 24).
Kurdish fighters near Qamishli, Syria, last year. The Syrian Kurds say their aim is to establish an autonomous region, not their own state, where their rights are protected, in whatever settlement comes from the long Syrian civil war. Credit Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
ISTANBUL — For almost two years, Syrian Kurds, with American weapons, air cover and training, have fought and died in battle against the Islamic State. They have taken pride in their status as the United States’ most faithful proxy in the fight against the militant group, and they have hoped their effectiveness as warriors would lead to American support for Kurdish political gains inside Syria.
So, many Kurds shuddered when Turkish tanks and soldiers recently rolled into northern Syria, with American support, to push back against Kurdish gains. They saw it, perhaps prematurely, as a replay of a century of betrayal by world powers, going back to the end of World War I, when they were promised, then denied, their own state in the postwar settlement.
“The Kurds are going to scream betrayal at every turn when they think things are not going to go their way, because they’ve had a century of it,” said Joost Hiltermann, the program director for the Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group, and a longtime expert on the Kurds. Read more ....
Bureau members of a preparatory conference to announce a federal system discuss a "Democratic Federal System for Rojava - Northern Syria" in the Kurdish-controlled town of Rmeilan, Hasaka province, Syria March 16, 2016. REUTERS/Rodi Said
Syria's Kurdish-controlled northern regions voted to seek autonomy under a federal system on Thursday, angering both the Damascus government and neighboring power Turkey with a move that could complicate new U.N.-backed peace talks.
The vote to unite three Kurdish-controlled provinces appears aimed at creating a self-run entity within Syria, a status that Kurds have enjoyed in neighboring Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
The proclamation is nevertheless an open challenge to many of the sides in Syria's 5-year-old civil war, as well as their international sponsors, who have mainly been battling for control of what they say must remain a unified state and have dismissed any unilateral move toward federalism.
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syrian Kurdish parties are working on a plan to declare a federal region across much of northern Syria, several of their representatives said on Wednesday. They said their aim was to formalize the semiautonomous zone they have established during five years of war and to create a model for decentralized government throughout the country.
If they move ahead with the plan, they will be dipping a toe into the roiling waters of debate over two proposals to redraw the Middle East map, each with major implications for Syria and its neighbors.
One is the longstanding aspiration of Kurds across the region to a state of their own or, failing that, greater autonomy in the countries where they are concentrated: Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria, all of which view such prospects with varying degrees of horror.
An incoherent American strategy is allowing Putin’s Russia to drive wedges into American alliances and disrupt what little strategy the U.S. has left in Syria. The latest example: Russia’s clever move to back the Syrian Kurds—key allies in what passes for America’s anti-ISIS strategy—against the Turks, America’s NATO allies and the keystone of any serious policy to restore order to Syria without the use of American troops.
As the Turks pound the Syrian Kurds and the Syrian Kurds turn to Russia for help, the last fig leaf drops away from the pretense that the United States has a strategy against ISIS. If President Obama sits back as the Russians humiliate the Turks and perhaps drive them into a greater intervention against the Kurds in Syria, he will watch as Putin shreds what is left of the U.S.-Turkish alliance that has been a bedrock of stability in the region since the Truman Administration.
WNU Editor: It is easy to blame Russia for the mess in Turkey and for disrupting Turkish-U.S. relations .... but it is the Turks who got themselves in this mess in the first place. Supporting the revolution against the Assad regime .... followed by supporting the Syrian rebels with military supplies, logistics, safe havens in Turkey, etc. .... followed by waging war against the Kurds .... all of these "chickens are now coming home to roost" for the Turkish government .... and they are paying the price for it. As for Washington .... their policy has always been to stay out of this mess as much as possible .... but they are getting drag in because of Turkey and treaty obligations .... a greater involvement that I sense President Obama is loathe to commit.
Kurdish Peshmerga fighters are seen during the battle with Islamic State militants on the outskirts of Mosul January 21, 2015. Kurdish forces in northern Iraq said on Wednesday they had cleared Islamic State insurgents from nearly 500 square kilometres of territory and broken a key IS supply line between the city of Mosul and strongholds to the west near Syria. REUTERS/Azad Lashkari
U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter visited Irbil, the capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, December 17 as part of a weeklong, unannounced trip to Iraq.
He met with the Kurdish region's President Masud Barzani and commanders within the U.S.-led coalition that is fighting Islamic State (IS) militants.
He later met with U.S. special operations forces and had dinner with U.S. troops.
Carter said Barzani assured him that Kurdish forces will participate in the coalition's effort to encircle IS and retake Mosul, which IS has held since last year.
Turkey has warned the United States and Russia it will not tolerate Kurdish territorial gains by Kurdish militia close to its frontiers in north-western Syria, two senior officials said.
"This is clear cut for us and there is no joking about it," one official said of the possibility of Syrian Kurdish militia crossing the Euphrates to extend control along Turkish borders from Iraq's Kurdistan region towards the Mediterranean coast.
Turkey fears advances by Kurdish YPG militia, backed by its PYD political wing, on the Syrian side of its 900 km (560-mile) border will fuel separatist ambitions among Kurds in its own southeastern territories. But Washington has supported YPG fighters as an effective force in combating Islamic State.
WNU Editor: Turkey is not really engaged in the war against the Islamic State, while these Kurdish militias are and they are advancing (see above video) .... and that is the crux of the problem. Turkey can threaten all that they want .... but as long as they are not involved (or unwilling) to wage war against ISIS, I expect their protests to fall on deaf ears.
The Pentagon’s overhaul of how it counters the Islamic State militant group in Syria could create at least one clear winner: the Kurdish groups there who have engaged in heavy combat against the Islamic State for months.
As U.S. officials explained on Friday how they will scale back and alter the Pentagon’s maligned $500 million train-and-equip program, they cited the success, largely attributed to the Kurds, in taking back the Syrian border town of Kobane last year from militants. The Pentagon’s effort has so far focused on establishing a Syrian rebel force to counter the Islamic State, but will be adapted to instead aid existing groups like the Kurds who are already doing so.
The change in strategy will not focus exclusively on arming Kurds, but they stand to benefit from the decision in Syria. To date, Washington has hesitated to hand equipment directly to the Kurds. Instead, they send them through the central government of Iraq, in part because of concerns in Baghdad that the Kurds want to break away and start their own country.
WNU Editor: Talk about timing with this U.S. announcement .... it only happened after this Kurdish leader said the following .... Syrian Kurdish Leader: Moscow Wants to Work With Us (Al-Monitor). On a side note .... Turkey is not going to be happy.
Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) fighters take up positions inside a damaged building in al-Vilat al-Homor neighborhood in Hasaka city, as they monitor the movements of Islamic State fighters who are stationed in Ghwayran neighborhood in Hasaka city, Syria, July 22, 2015.
The roles of underground operations, guerrilla, sabotage, and classic special-operations units are groups who act in frustration to opposing forces.
In this case the bullet meets the bone in Syria as Kurdish Forces are successfully deploying unconventional-warfare tactics against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Kurdish forces have developed and deployed covert guerrilla warfighters against ISIS. Such as the recently reported 45 ISIS fighters "die after eating poisoned Ramadan meal in Iraq."
WNU Editor: This probably explains why the Kurds are the only military force that has been successful in defeating the Islamic state on the battlefield .... it also explains why coalition air-strikes have been limited in deterring and/or stopping the Islamic State.
A Kurdish resident holds a signs during a demonstration in support of the Peshmerga troops in front of the U.S. consulate in Erbil, north of Baghdad, August 11, 2014. (Reuters)
Syrian Kurds are serving as 'boots on the ground' against the Islamic State, but Turkey opposes their involvement.
As the United States and Turkey launch airstrikes to oust the Islamic State from a stretch of northern Syria, they appear at odds over the role of a critical fighting force on the ground: the Syrian Kurds.
Turkey insists that the main Syrian Kurdish militia have no role in the new operation, a reflection of its worries about the separatist leanings of Kurds in the region. But U.S. officials aren’t willing — at least not publicly — to freeze out the Syrian Kurds, whose fighters already have driven the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, out of much of northern Syria.
WNU Editor: To me .... this choice is a no brainer.The Kurds have proven themselves more than once to be the only effective ground force that can take on the Islamic State .... and to defeat them. In the case of Turkey, they have been an ineffective ally in this conflict, and there is mounting evidence that they have in fact been helping the Islamic State in its war against Syrian President Assad. But .... there are other factors at play, and one of them is that the Kurds themselves are deeply divided. Until the Kurds are unified .... I do not see the U.S. changing its Kurdish policy.
Stabs in the back don’t get much nastier than this.
For the past year, Western leaders have feted the Kurds of Northern Iraq, praising them as one of the few forces gutsy enough to face down the death cult of Isil.
Now, those leaders turn a blind eye, or even worse give an active nod, to attacks on Northern Iraqi Kurds by the Turkish air force.
Heroes one minute; fair game for massacre the next. In the long list of Western betrayals of former allies overseas, this one feels especially grotesque.
Last Friday, following months of negotiation with Washington, Turkey launched its first-ever air strikes against Isil in Syria.
A few hours later it started dropping bombs in Northern Iraq — not on Isil, but on the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, with which Turkey has been locked in bitter conflict since 1984.
WNU Editor: Brendan O'Neil's analysis is correct .... to say that there is a moral equivalence between a barbaric group that seems to have been teleported form the Middle Ages and a Marxist guerrilla outfit that wants to create a Kurdish homeland on Iraqi, Turkish and Syrian territory is a stretch .... but such is the state of affairs for how the Kurds are now being branded. Not surprising .... the Kurds that the West continues to support (YPG, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units in Syria) .... are also now being bombed by the Turkish air force .... and they are the one military force that has been the most effective against the Islamic State. But what makes this betrayal even worse is that Turkey has been a worthless ally in NATO since the war against the Islamic State started, more so as close links between Turkey and the Islamic state continue to be uncovered .... Official: Links Between ISIS and Turkey ‘Undeniable’(PJ Media). Bottom line .... when the Kurds won a number of seats in the Turkish parliamentary elections last month .... thereby hampering and stopping Turkish President Erdogan's agenda, people started to speculate on what will the Turkish President do next .... now we know the answer to that question.
Iraqi Kurdish Forces Enter Syria To Fight Islamic State -- Reuters
(Reuters) - A first group of Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters entered the besieged Syrian town of Kobani on Thursday to help push back Islamic State militants who have defied U.S. air strikes and threatened to massacre its Kurdish defenders.
Kobani, on the border with Turkey, has been encircled by the Sunni Muslim insurgents for more than 40 days. Weeks of U.S.-led air strikes have failed to break their stranglehold, and Kurds are hoping the arrival of the peshmerga will turn the tide.
The siege of Kobani - known in Arabic as Ayn al-Arab - has become a test of the U.S.-led coalition's ability to stop Islamic State's advance, and Washington has welcomed the peshmerga's deployment. It has intensified its air strikes in the past two days ahead of their arrival.
At Least Nine Dead In As Kurds Protest In Turkey -- BBC
At least nine people have been killed in clashes between Kurdish protesters and police in Turkey, reports say.
They are unhappy at perceived Turkish inaction in defending the predominantly Kurdish town of Kobane in Syria from an attack by Islamic State militants.
Curfews were imposed in several predominantly Kurdish cities in southern Turkey after the unrest.
Turkish Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan said that Turkey was doing "whatever can be done" for Kobane.
He said that it was a "massive lie" that his country had done nothing for the towns inhabitants.
Turkish troops and tanks have lined the border but have not crossed into Syria.
I have been involved in numerous computer science projects since the 1980s, as well as developing numerous web projects since 1996.
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