ISIS/ISIL conflict in Syria/Iraq (No OpEd, No Politics)

Foreign Ministers Agree To Arm Kurds In Iraq
A meeting in Brussels is told Iraq is on the brink of a "true catastrophe" as Kurdish Peshmerga forces ask for aid.8:26pm UK, Friday 15 August 2014
Iraq Peshmerga


EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels have agreed to arm Kurdish fighters battling Islamist militants in northern Iraq.

Prior to the meeting, France, Germany, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands all said they were prepared to supply weapons to the Peshmerga forces.

It comes after Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond described Islamic State (IS) as a "terrible threat" and the UN designated the humanitarian situation in the country a "level three emergency".

The meeting of foreign ministers from the 28 EU nations, called by EU foreign policy chief Baroness Ashton, followed reports of thousands of Yazidi refugees stranded in the Sinjar Mountains.

The current state of fighting on the ground in Iraq
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, German Foreign Minister, said: "Iraq is on the brink of a true catastrophe. A million people in Iraq are fleeing their homes.

"In northern Iraq, in the Kurdish part, Yazidis and Christians are being persecuted and slaughtered."

Defence matters are normally the responsibility of member states, so the EU approval to send weapons is rare.

But governments are also concerned that IS could attract radicals from Europe who then return to the West.

The UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution on Friday targeting Islamist militants in Iraq and Syria.

The document places six Islamist leaders from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other nations on an al Qaeda sanctions list - which allows for a travel ban and asset freezes.

Earlier this week, the European Commission said it would increase humanitarian aid to Iraq to €17m (£13.6m).

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U.S. airstrikes hit militants' vehicles near Sinjar
Aug. 15, 2014 - 06:37PM |
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IRAQ-UNREST-KURDS
An Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighter takes position on the front line in Khazer, near the Kurdish checkpoint of Aski kalak, 40 km west of Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, on Thursday. (SAFIN HAMED/AFP/Getty Images)
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WASHINGTON — U.S. military officials say airstrikes from drones have destroyed two armed vehicles south of the Iraqi town of Sinjar, the latest American-led military actions against forces of the Islamic State group.

In a statement Friday, U.S. Central Command said Kurdish forces had reported that Islamic State militants were attacking civilians in the village of Kawju.

Officials say remotely piloted aircraft identified and then followed an armed vehicle to a roadside area near Sanjar and later struck and destroyed two vehicles in the area.

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Iraq Militants 'Kill Hundreds And Take Families'
A second massacre is reported in a village occupied by Yazidis, many of whom have already fled the Islamic State advance.5:02pm UK, Saturday 16 August 2014 Yazidi men in truck
Officials say 400 Yazidi people have been killed by Islamist militants



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More than 400 Yazidi men have been killed and their families abducted by militants in northern Iraq, local officials have said.

A senior official at the Ministry of Peshmerga in the Kurdish-controlled region of the country told Sky News women and children had been seized by the fighters from Islamic State (IS), also known as Islamic State In Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and taken to Tal Afar, near Mosul.

The men from the village of Kocho were reportedly killed over two days - 82 on Friday and another 312 on Saturday, the officials said.

Earlier, Yazidi fighter Mohsen Tawwal told AFP by telephone that he had seen a large number of bodies after entering the village.

The current state of fighting on the ground in Iraq
"We made it into a part of Kocho village, where residents were under siege, but we were too late," he said.

"There were corpses everywhere. We only managed to get two people out alive. The rest had all been killed."

Thousands of Yazidis - people from a minority sect with an ancient religion - have been forced to flee their homes by the IS advance across northern Iraq.

The extremist group has swept across a large part of northern and central Iraq, seizing Mosul and threatening Baghdad and the Kurdish capital Irbil.

On Saturday, airstrikes targeted the group around Mosul Dam. IS seized the dam, Iraq's largest, on August 7.

The Ministry of Defence said it deployed a US-made spy plane over the north of the country to monitor the humanitarian crisis and the movements of IS fighters.

The converted Boeing KC-135 tanker - called a Rivet Joint - will monitor mobile phone calls and other communications.

Two British planes landed in the Kurdish regional capital Irbil on Saturday, carrying humanitarian supplies.

Iraq's human rights minister Mohammed Shia al Sudani said militants had killed at least 500 members of the Yazidi community. Some of the victims, including women and children, were buried alive, he added.

Some 1.5 million people have been displaced by the fighting since the IS advance began in June.

It comes after the UN Security Council blacklisted six Islamist militants on Friday and threatened sanctions against anyone who helped arm or supply them.

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Kurdish rivals unite to fight Islamic State

PKK forces have joined the fighting in Iraq, a move some say could boost tension between Turkey and Iraqi Kurds.

Wladimir van Wilgenburg Last updated: 16 Aug 2014 08:38

Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters have joined the fight against the Islamic State group in Iraq. [Reuters]
Erbil, Iraq - The President of Iraq's Kurdish region, Massoud Barzani, visited fighters of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) for the first time last week, after the PKK joined Kurdish Peshmerga forces to expel the Islamic State group from the town of Makhmour.

In a video published online, Barzani thanked the PKK fighters: "We are brothers. They [Islamic State fighters] are the enemy of the people of Kurdistan. We have one destiny; we will do everything, what we can," Barzani said.

But some analysts said the public pronouncement could complicate relations between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Turkey, which has fought a decades-long war against the PKK, a Kurdish armed group operating primarily in the country's southeast.


Check out our complete coverage of the crisis in Iraq

Others have said that the PKK's involvement - Turkey, the US and the European Union designate the group as a terrorist organisation - could hurt ties between Ankara and the West, which is planning to provide armed support to Kurds in Iraq. "I hope that the relations between the Kurds and Turks are strategic enough so that these steps by Barzani do not irritate the Turks," said Dawood Atrushi, vice-president of international relations at Duhok University.

"The US is providing air cover to a force it once called terrorists, and continues to black list as such. The current conflict as it stands has presented a paradox that will need to be addressed at some point in the near future as these extreme ends - the PKK and the US - continue to fight a common enemy," said Roman Zagros, editor of Insight Kurdistan, a Kurdish consultancy and service website.

According to US law, it is prohibited to provide weapons or training to designated terrorist organisations. But according to Michael Knights, an analyst with the Washington Institute for New East Poilcy, "If there is any signs of widespread diversion of US weapons, the US will actively investigate this".

Knights said it was unlikely the PKK would be on the receiving end of these weapons in Iraq. "Perhaps something would end up with the PKK, but [does Barzani] really want that to happen? I don't think so."

Turkish diplomatic sources, meanwhile, said Barzani's visit to the PKK would be brought up in the next high-level meetings between the Iraqi Kurds and Turkey. "This is a sensitive topic when people see PKK fighters fighting alongside Peshmerga forces, this is not something ignorable in Turkey," a Turkish diplomat, who spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity, said.

IN PICTURES: The Kurdish frontline in Iraq

Historically, the PKK and Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), headed by Barzani, have competed over the leadership of approximately 30 million stateless Kurds, spread out over Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. The KDP even supported Turkish military operations against the PKK in the 1990s.

Since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Turkey has built closer economic ties to Iraq's Kurdish leaders, although Ankara initially opposed Kurdish autonomy in Iraq, fearing it could inspire its own Kurdish minority to demand greater rights of their own.

Around 1,500 Turkish companies now operate in Iraq's Kurdish region, and Turkey supports independent Kurdish oil exports, selling a shipment of 1.3 million barrels of oil in May despite objections from Baghdad.


Inside Story - Will Maliki's resignation save Iraq?
Turkey also borders a Kurdish-controlled region in Syria, formed as a result of the ongoing Syrian war. This Kurdish autonomy led to tensions between Barzani and the PKK-affiliated Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria, after they failed to implement a power-sharing agreement.

Both Turkey and Barzani have rejected the group's rule in northern Syria, while the PYD has marginalised Barzani-supporters in Syria by arresting them and banning their political activities.

But with the Islamic State group's advance into Iraq's Kurdish region, the Kurdish groups united. "We had a meeting with the president of the Kurdistan region [Barzani]. We discussed joint actions and agreed on certain things," Tekoser Zagros, the PKK commander in Makhmour, said.

"From now on, our forces and the Peshmerga will coordinate their actions in South Kurdistan [Iraq's Kurdish region] against the criminal gang [Islamic State]. And we will continue until Kurdistan is safe, and [the Islamic State group] is finished."

RELATED: Iraq refugees 'terrified to be sent back'

In Makhmour, the PKK played a pivotal role in re-gaining control from the Islamic State group. The Makhmour refugee camp hosts 10,000 Kurds from Turkey that fled the country's civil war between the PKK and Turkish government in the 1990s. Turkey has often complained to the United Nations that the camp is used by the PKK.

"We have been living in Makhmour for 20 years, and they attacked us," said Hussein Rebar, a member of the Makhmour refugee council. "We had to pick up guns to protect ourselves. We have around 100 fighters here," he added.

Kurdish Peshmerga commanders such as Ali Sulaiman, who leads 700 Peshmerga fighters, said relations between the Kurdish armed factions of the KDP and PKK are good. "We are all like brothers. They [PKK fighters] are also, like us, defending this area, and there is some co-operation between us."

Hemin Hawrami, head of foreign relations for the KDP, said the new relations are not surprising. "In Makhmour, some of them were in their camp and they have their own weapons. They are not typical [fighters] from Qandil [the main PKK camp close to the Turkish border]. So they protected their own camp with the Peshmerga," he said.

Zagros Hiwa, a PKK spokesperson, told Al Jazeera that the Kurds will defend themselves, and that Barzani visited all Kurdish armed groups in Makhmour that fought the Islamic State group. "Our approach as [PKK] is that we disregard many [political] interpretations of the situation and we just concentrate on defence," he said.

"In many places [PKK fighters] and Peshmerga forces are together in Kirkuk, some places in Shingal, and in Maxmur especially, they fought together against [the Islamic State]," Hiwa added.

"If [Islamic State] does not unify us, then we have to give up," said Sheruan Hassan, a leading PYD-member in Europe. "If we work together, others [countries] will have less influence on us, and the Kurds can protect themselves."

RELATED: Iraq's Kurds demand expanded US operation

Galip Dalay, a researcher at the Turkey-based SETA foundation, said he did not anticipate a negative public reaction from Ankara to the ties between the PKK and Iraqi Kurdish forces, especially after PYD leader Salih Muslim visited Turkey in July 2013 to meet with Turkish officials.

"First, PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan is in a dialogue with Turkey’s political establishment to solve the Kurdish issue, and secondly, Turkey engaged with PKK-affiliate PYD on several occasions," Dalay told Al Jazeera.

A KDP official, speaking to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity, said he did not expect any negative reaction to Barzani’s visit. "PKK [fighters] have relatives [in Makhmour], and they came to protect [them]. I don’t think there will be any concern from the Turkish side."

Ahmet Berat Conkar, a member of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), and deputy chairman of the AKP's foreign affairs division, said the Turkish government had no problem with the PKK's role in fighting in Iraq. "Turkey does not see this kind of an alliance as a threat against [itself] or [its] interests," he said.

"Turkey has a good relationship with KDP and plays a positive role in the region," Conkar told Al Jazeera. The ongoing peace process between Ankara and the PKK, he added, "is progressing quite positively, aiming to guarantee Kurds' rights as well as to disarm the PKK and integrate its members into Turkish society."

But Kurdish analyst Roman Zagros was unsure KDP-PKK ties would improve in the long-term. "I think it's true that this is a significant development; it managed to bring the two rivals together. But one has to also understand that it took a force such as [the Islamic State group] to bring the two together in the same front. This simply underlines the deep differences between the two."

Source: Al Jazeera

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Islamic State 'massacres' 80 Yazidis in north Iraq: officials
Photo
9:25am EDT
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Islamic State insurgents "massacred" some 80 members of Iraq's Yazidi minority in a village in the country's north, a Yazidi lawmaker and two Kurdish officials said on Friday.
"They arrived in vehicles and they started their killing this afternoon," senior Kurdish official Hoshiyar Zebari told Reuters. "We believe it's because of their creed: convert or be killed."
A Yazidi lawmaker and another senior Kurdish official also said the killings had taken place and that the women of the village were kidnapped.
A push by Islamic State militants through northern Iraq to the border with the Kurdish region has alarmed the Baghdad government, drawn the first U.S. air strikes since the end of American occupation in 2001 and sent tens of thousands of Yazidis and Christians fleeing for their lives.
Yazidi parliamentarian Mahama Khalil said he had spoken to villagers who had survived the attack. They said the killings took place during a one-hour period.
The resident of a nearby village said an Islamic State fighter from the same area gave him details of the bloodshed.
"He told me that the Islamic State had spent five days trying to persuade villagers to convert to Islam and that a long lecture was delivered about the subject today," said the villager. "He then said the men were gathered and shot dead. The women and girls were probably taken to Tal Afar because that is where the foreign fighters are."
That account could not be independently confirmed.
Islamic State militants have killed at least 500 members of Iraq's Yazidi ethnic minority during their offensive in the north, Iraq's human rights minister told Reuters on Sunday.
Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said the Sunni militants had also buried alive some of their victims, including women and children. Some 300 women were kidnapped as slaves, he added.
(Reporting by Isabel Coles, Michael Georgy and Raheem Salman; Writing by Alexander Dziadosz; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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The pilot really made a big impression. You know, the Yazidis feel so betrayed by the Arab neighbors they had lived among for so many years; they all turned on the Yazidis when ISIS came. Many of the atrocities were carried out not by the militants but by their own neighbors.

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Franklin said:

Interesting bit of information. It seems that most of the killing of Yazidi's was not done by ISIS militants but by their very own Arab neighbours when the ISIS came to town. That is according to rescued Yazidi witnesses from that mountain top. So those Yazidi's on that mountain top maybe fleeing more from their neighbours then from the ISIS.

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Reuters said:

(Reuters) - Iraqi and Kurdish forces recaptured Iraq's biggest dam from Islamist militants with the help of U.S. air strikes to secure a vital strategic objective in fighting that threatens to break up the country, Kurdish and U.S. officials said on Monday.

U.S. fighter, bomber and drone aircraft took part in the strikes on Islamic State positions near the Mosul Dam, the Pentagon said. The strikes damaged or destroyed six armed vehicles, a light armored vehicle and other equipment.

The dam had given the militants control over power and water supplies, and any breach of the vulnerable structure would have threatened thousands of lives.

U.S. President Barack Obama said Iraqi and Kurdish forces had retaken the dam with U.S. help. U.S. air strikes this month are the first in Iraq since the United States pulled out in 2011

"This operation demonstrates that Iraqi and Kurdish forces are capable of working together in taking the fight to ISIS (Islamic State), and if they continue to do so they will have the strong support of the United States of America," Obama told a news conference.

As fighting intensified, Islamic State militants were said to have killed dozens of Kurdish fighters and captured 170 of them, according to a Twitter site that supports the group.

The Islamists' seizure of the Mosul hydroelectric dam in northern Iraq this month marked a stunning setback for Baghdad's Shi'ite-led authorities and raised fears the militants could cut electricity and water, or even blow up the shaky structure, causing huge loss of life and damage down the Tigris river valley.

"The failure of the Mosul Dam could threaten the lives of large numbers of civilians, threaten U.S. personnel and facilities - including the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad - and prevent the Iraqi government from providing critical services to the Iraqi populace," a senior U.S. administration official said in Washington.

Iraqi officials hailed what they said was a strategic victory in regaining control of the dam, and announced that the next objective would be to win back Mosul itself, the biggest city in northern Iraq which lies 40 km (25 miles) downstream.

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