Rescue Iraq

ISIS declared defeated in Syria

The ISIS caliphate has ended, but its breeding ground thrives

By Senior International Correspondent Ben Wedeman

 

Updated 0743 GMT (1543 HKT) March 23, 2019

(CNN) "You will conquer Rome and own the world," ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi told his followers in July 2014.

In the previous month, a few hundred ISIS fighters had seized Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, in a matter of hours. They drove thousands of Iraqi troops from the city, in the process getting their hands on a huge arsenal of US-supplied weaponry Iraqi forces had left behind. They went on to conquer a string of towns and cities, reaching the outskirts of Baghdad.

At its height, Baghdadi's so-called caliphate reigned over a realm the size of Britain, with 10 million people under its sway. Its sudden catapult to world attention, combined with an uncanny mastery at social media and slick video production, attracted thousands of people from around the globe eager to take part in the new utopian experiment.

Now, four and a half years later, that realm has all but disappeared, after Kurdish forces said Saturday that they captured the eastern Syrian pocket of Baghouz, the last populated area under ISIS rule.

Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces have launched multiple operations since early February to bring the caliphate to an end. Night and day, artillery and mortar barrages and warplanes from the US-led foreign coalition pounded ISIS' final encampment: a sprawling junkyard of wrecked cars and tattered tents.

Tens of thousands of people have left ISIS' last stronghold since the barrage began, includingISIS jihadis who have surrendered.

In an ISIS video, people could be seen running for cover while others fired from the barricades. In its final week, the shell-cratered pocket held as many as 5,000 people and defied all predictions of a swift and final defeat.

The group still has some fighters in central Syria and has gone underground in Iraq, where it continues to stage surprise attacks.

 

An image grab taken from a video released on July 5, 2014 by Al-Furqan Media shows alleged ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi preaching during Friday prayer at a mosque in Mosul.

ISIS as a territorial entity, a quasi-state, is history. The scars left by ISIS, and the long war against it, will take decades to heal. 

In June 2015, I visited a school in Baghdad that had been turned into a temporary home for people who had experienced life in Mosul under ISIS and had fled the madness. 

One of them, Louay Shawkat, was an Iraqi army veteran, now confined to a wheelchair.

He told me he had fought the Iranians in Iraq's eight-year war with that country, fought the Americans in 1991. ISIS, he said, is different. 

"It's an illness," he said. "It's impossible to cure. Cancer can be cured. Tuberculosis can be cured. Almost every illness can be cured, but not this one." 

Indeed, we've seen the cancer manifest. In the perverse, lurid video beheadings of American journalist James Foley and other journalists; in the burning, alive in a cage, of Jordanian air force pilot Moath al-Kasasbeh. The Jordanian's murder was shot from multiple angles, the entire production edited together by someone who was clearly a professional. Countless murders captured on camera in the most gruesome detail were spread across the globe by social media.

 

Photo of Jordanian pilot Moath al-Kasasbeh in uniform. Video and still images surfaced on Feb. 3, 2015, showing the pilot being burned alive while confined in a cage.

We saw it in the mass murder and enslavement of Yazidis in Iraq and Syria, where ISIS killed the old and infirm and the able-bodied men, and sold the women and children into slavery. ISIS didn't conceal, didn't deny and didn't cover up any of it.

While many of the regimes in the Middle East try to hide their barbarity, will go to great lengths to conceal their violations of human rights, will spend tens of millions of dollars on lobbying and public relations firms to conceal the true nature of their rule, ISIS boasted of its brutality, took pride in its savagery.

In 2015, I went to Baharka refugee camp outside Erbil, in northern Iraq. There I met Ibrahim, a Palestinian born in Haifa. He fled his home in 1948 at the age of 11, eventually ending up in Mosul, where he experienced life under ISIS first hand.

"The things we've seen were enough to drive you mad," he recounted, sitting cross-legged on a blanket in his family's tent.

"We ran away," his son, Tamer, interjected. "I didn't want my children to see any more horrible things. In Mosul, we'd drive down the street and see dogs eating dead bodies in the road."

 

Like the Yazidis, Christians who found themselves in the path of ISIS's onslaught knew that as non-Muslims their fate was bleak at best.

Father Gabriel Touma was born in the northern Iraqi Christian town of Al-Qosh and lived there all his life. When I met him in early 2015, he recalled that, just months before, ISIS forces were just six kilometers, less than four miles, from the town.

"I stood before the statue of the Virgin Mary and wept with a broken heart," he told me. "I prayed to her to protect us from evil."

He had seen what ISIS had done in nearby Mosul, where they toppled crosses off church roofs, vandalizing their contents, sequestered property owned by Christians and imposed taxes on those who refused to convert.

"It's like knife stabbing us in the heart, when we see our heritage, our history, the work of our forefathers, being destroyed before our eyes and we're helpless to do anything to stop it," he said. "It's a slow death."

 

 

 

Photos: Mosul: Iraqi-led forces push into key city

Members of the Iraqi federal police wave the country's flag as they celebrate in the Old City of Mosul on July 9, 2017. Iraq declared victory against ISIS forces in Mosul after a grueling monthslong campaign. The battle to reclaim Mosul, the last major ISIS stronghold in Iraq, has been underway since fall 2016.

 

 

But ISIS's reign of terror didn't spare those who might have seen it in a more positive light.

Abdel Razaq Hamadi, a Sunni tribal leader in Al-Dour, a town outside Tikrit, Iraq, recounted to me that when ISIS took control, they attacked his home, killing his wife, two sons and two grandsons. 

He was under no illusion about the group, regardless of their claims to piety, and took up arms against ISIS.

"I know the people who killed my family," he said. "We want to fight these terrorists, drive them out of this area and never see them again." 

Two years later, on the outskirts of Mosul at the height of the offensive to retake the city, I sat with Mariam, a women in her 70s, by the side of the road. She was resting after fleeing her home, chain-smoking the cigarettes ISIS had forbidden her to have. 

She had no illusions.

"They took pills. They drank alcohol. They oppressed us," she spat out scornfully. "But when they came to you, they'd say 'God says this, Muhammad says that.'"

 

In the town of Al-Alam, near Tikrit, we were there when trucks piled high with mattresses, household possessions and people drove into the town, bringing home residents after ISIS had fled.

"Thank God we're home," said a woman, who identified herself only as Um Nour, the mother of Nour. "We've been freed from ISIS. May God curse them until judgment day!"

Indeed, today much of Syria and Iraq has been freed from ISIS, but its curse lives on. There, the group has morphed into a low-level insurgency, carrying out hit-and-run attacks and bombings.

And beyond, in Libya, Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, Nigeria, the Philippines, Afghanistan and elsewhere, groups that have pledged allegiance to ISIS still control territory. And ISIS continues to inspire so-called lone wolves to carry out attacks.

 

Female fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) gather during a celebration at the Al-Naim square in Raqqa on October 19, 2017, after retaking the city from ISIS.

While some may be tempted to celebrate what is seen as ISIS's demise, the fertile soil in which ISIS grew and spread is still there. 

Brutal regimes across the Middle East have emerged from the Arab Spring more adept than ever at repression. The prisons are full of the innocent and the guilty rounded up by police states adept in the art of torture and coercion. At the same time, a new wave of unrest, fueled by anger over the rising cost of living, is beginning to raise its head, spurred on by the inability of these very same states, teetering on the brink of failure due to incompetence, corruption, bankruptcy and brutality.

 

Unless all of that changes, ISIS or something perhaps even worse, like a demonic phoenix will rise again from the ashes of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's ruined realm.

 

By Senior International Correspondent Ben Wedeman

 

A Super Bowl sized Ego

I wasn't able to watch the Super Bowl this year -- surprisingly low score -- but as the news said, there will be one wide receiver that will be seeing nightmares for awhile because of what 'could have been'.

The next day I watched the highlights and read some of the interviews and one really caught my attention.

They were interviewing Robert Kraft, the owner of the Patriots, when he said these words,

"Getting everybody on the same page is probably the way you really hit that sweet spot, getting everybody to check their egos at the door. That's true in life. It's true in relationships. It's true in everything."

That really spoke to me and resonated as a truism. How many times have teams failed to live up to their fullest potential because one or two members let their ego get in the way?

And it reminded me of this verse in the Bible, "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests but also to the interests of others." Philippians 2:4

Of course, much has been said of the Brady Belichick dynasty. What I see in it is a powerful commitment to friendship and excellence and underneath it all a submission one onto another, knowing each other's strengths and weaknesses, and pushing each other to their limits.

http://sportswire.usatoday.com/2015/01/19/brady-and-belichick-jumping-obstacles-to-create-dynasty/

Brady may have a Super Bowl sized ego, but he knows his part to play in the story - that he is just one part of the larger team.

"I just love working hard. I love being part of a team; I love working toward a common goal." says Tom Brady
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/lists/authors/top_10_tom_brady_quotes

And Robert Kraft sits back and sees it all with a smile on his face, content to let the football players play and the coaches coach. He knows his role too, and "hitting the sweet spot" has never been more fun.

Take a word of advice from one of the winningest football team owners in history and "check your ego at the door."

The West's staunchest ally against ISIS is fighting on empty, article by Campbell MacDiarmid

If you've got a minute, I really encourage you to take the time to read this article by Mr. MacDiarmid. It shares a side of Iraqi-Kurdistan that many have been too busy to notice. Just how vulnerable Iraqi-Kurdistan is no one really knows, but this article sheds some needed light on an area of the world that stands as a bulwark against Islamic fanaticism and a beacon of hope for a more peaceful Middle East. Let's not let it's light go out.

 

The West’s staunchest ally against ISIS is fighting on empty

Kurdish peshmerga forces are fighting off Islamic State. But with oil wealth drying up, an even bigger threat is spreading.

by: Campbell MacDiarmid

February 29, 2016

 

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Peshmerga fighters at a frontline southwest of Kirkuk, Iraq. Many Peshmerga fighting ISIS haven’t been paid a salary over four months due to the economic crisis in Kurdistan. (Photograph by Cengiz Yar)

The men of the Second Unit, Third Peshmerga Brigade, no longer fear the suicide truck bombs that a year ago might at any time come lurching through the fields toward their positions. From a concrete bunker atop a bulldozed mound southwest of Kirkuk, their French-donated heavy machine gun points skywards over the heads of Arab farmers who have returned to till their land. A network of bunkers, berms, deep trenches and barbed-wire entanglements today protects much of Iraqi Kurdistan from Islamic State attacks. But the peshmerga fighters—the international coalition’s most stalwart ally in the fight against Islamic State, or ISIS—have other things to worry about, like paying rent.

Sherko Jabar explains the situation between drags on a slim cigarette. The 33-year-old fair-haired Kurd gets respect as a peshmerga but pays his bills as a cabbie. For the past five months he and his comrades haven’t received their salaries, so he spends his time off driving one of Iraqi Kurdistan’s ubiquitous beige taxis. The problem is, most of his fares haven’t received their salaries either. “Before my customers would just pay; now if I ask for 5,000 dinar [$6], they’ll haggle for 3,000 [$3.75],” Jabar says. “People are frustrated and they’re blaming the government.”

“My men aren’t fighting for money,” Jabar’s commander, a grizzled 47-year-old lieutenant colonel, Osman Abdullah Kareem, interjects. “Even if we aren’t getting our salaries we’ll defend Kurdistan against this ISIS threat.”

Related: How an army of Kurds are beating back ISIS

Further up the chain of the command, though, sits Gen. Rasul Omer Latif, and he’s furious. A storied and bombastic peshmerga commander, Latif commands the West Kirkuk sector from an office stuffed with gilt furniture in Karwan Camp outside the city of Kirkuk. He recounts a recent radio appearance: “I told them, if you [the Kurdistan Regional Government] don’t pay our peshmerga, I’ll kill you myself. We’re talking about revolution here!”

He laughs, softening the mood. Which is just as well, because he’s an imposing man, who says he has fought in 23 military operations during his 28-year career and been wounded six times, including losing a foot fighting another extremist Islamist group that preceded ISIS. “Of course this is just talk and we’ll talk more, but if that doesn’t change things, well . . . ” he leaves the threat hanging.

Iraqi Kurdistan is broke and its people angry. While the government scrambles to introduce reforms, Kurds are asking where the money went. While low oil prices are a decidedly more mundane menace than ISIS, they are now also a more real one. As a trip across the troubled region reveals, it’s not just Kurdish dreams at stake, but the security of the region and beyond.

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People playing games and hanging out at an old tea shop in the city center of Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan, Iraq. As the economic crisis deepens in Kurdistan, government salaries aren’t being paid and people are struggling to continue their daily life. (Photograph by Cengiz Yar)

Just a few years ago, Iraqi Kurdistan was booming. Arriving back in 2012, Ayad Jaff rode the wave at its crest. A trim realtor with gelled hair, Jaff was well placed to succeed after a decade overseas working in real estate in Norway and Greece. From his office in a half-finished housing development on the outskirts of Irbil, Jaff recounts how quickly Iraqi Kurdistan’s capital was transforming from a sleepy backwater into a sprawling gold-rush city breathlessly promoted as a “new Dubai.” To illustrate, he cites a deal where a villa bought for $140,000 in 2013 sold a year later for $280,000; that was standard. “Just imagine,” Jaff recalls wistfully.

Such prosperity was unimaginable in the 1990s, when Iraqi Kurdistan languished under international sanctions and isolation from the rest of Iraq, and was a big reason why men like Jaff sought lives abroad. But a decade of prosperity after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion drew thousands of Kurds back, not to mention foreign investors. Iraq’s constitution granted the region political autonomy and, importantly, 17 per cent of the country’s enormous oil revenues.

Former enemies the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Party came together to form the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in 2005, which spent billions on subsidies and expanding its payroll, while the two parties continued to vie to purchase influence.

Offering land for development was a major way in which patronage was allocated and property speculation hit dizzying heights, Jaff says. An electronic money counter on his desk recalls times when businessmen kept laptop bags of U.S. dollars or flour sacks of dinar in the trunks of their cars to seal deals on the spot. “Cash was everything,” he says. “I knew a taxi driver who became a millionaire in three years.”

The wave crashed even faster than it peaked. Across town in another upmarket development—this one called Dream City—Dlawer Ala’Aldeen is sipping his morning coffee. Originally a U.K.-trained microbiologist, Ala’Aldeen was later a minister of higher education and scientific research in the KRG before becoming the president of the Middle East Research Institute (MERI), a local think tank. He explains that Kurdistan’s boom was dependent on a single factor: high oil prices. A failure to build a tax base or diversify the economy left it vulnerable. “But its weaknesses did not show for as long as there was a good flow of cash,” he says.

Unfinished buildings in Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan, Iraq. Construction projects across Iraqi Kurdistan have ground to a halt as Kurdistan’s economy falls further into crisis. Unfinished buildings dot the landscape in cities across the region. (Photograph by Cengiz Yar)

In the summer of 2014, the ISIS advance across northern Iraq drove a million Iraqis to seek shelter in Kurdish regions and finally broke itself against the determined peshmerga’s defences. The cost of the war and its attendant humanitarian crisis would have been burdensome during the boom, but earlier that year the Iraqi federal government had cut budget payments to the KRG in a dispute over the Kurds’ right to export oil independently. The Kurds ramped up independent exports, even as prices fell toward their lowest level in a decade.

“The equation is simple for the government,” Ala’Aldeen concludes. “The amount of income they generate is less than the amount they need to keep the system running.”

For two years, the KRG fell behind in payments to oil companies, halted investment in infrastructure projects, and raided local banks for loans. By January this year, with oil below US$30 a barrel, the government was panicking.

The KRG president’s office, the prime minister’s office and the ministries of finance and natural resources are all frantically trying to implement a reform plan and too busy to meet with a journalist. Eventually an economic adviser to the prime minister agrees to a phone interview.

The KRG earned approximately $620 million for the 18.7 million barrels it exported during January (the price discounted from Brent crude to account for quality, transportation cost and political risk), the adviser said. The KRG’s monthly payroll alone is over $1 billion.

Unable to print money or easily take out international loans, the KRG looked to slash the budget. The payroll—which accounts for 70 per cent of expenditures—was the biggest target. On Jan. 27, the KRG announced a plan to cut all public salaries—except the peshmerga and security services—by between 15 and 75 per cent. The public was not impressed.

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Hawkar, 21, and Muhammad, 18, smoke shisha and picnic on a mountain overlooking the city of Sulaymaniyah in Iraqi Kurdistan. When asked about the economic situation in Kurdistan, Hawker says “All the young people in Suli (Sulaymaniyah) are jobless and don’t have money. If you go to the cafe. They don’t have dinar in their pocket.” (Photograph by Cengiz Yar)

A 2½-hour drive from Irbil, Iraqi Kurdistan’s second city, Sulaimani, is opposition heartland. It’s here that anti-government sentiment is hardening. Set amid a picturesque ring of hills, the city didn’t experience the same unchecked development as Irbil, although the boom times did bestow upon it an American university, an international airport, and a 253-room luxury hotel with revolving rooftop restaurant. Recently it’s been given a new nickname: the strike capital.

The green linoleum hallways of Shoresh General Hospital are eerily quiet. The hospital has one of two public emergency departments in Sulaimani. Ordinarily 15 doctors treat around 200 patients daily. On a recent afternoon, however, 28-year-old orthopedic resident Ahmed Hassan is one of four doctors on shift and the emergency room’s capacity is reduced to 50 patients. “We’re turning the rest away because we’re unable to see them all,” Hassan says.

A tour of the hospital’s storeroom reveals a lack of basic medications like Tylenol. “We lack plates to set bones,” says Hassan. “Most of the time we have to tell patients to go and buy the kits themselves.” Unpaid for five months, many doctors have stopped coming to work. Some—Hassan estimates 10 per cent—have left for Europe. They join some 37,000 from Kurdistan who have left since 2014, according to estimates by the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees.

Across the region, striking staff are closing hospitals. They’re joining policemen, judges, university staff, teachers and other civil servants in shutting down public institutions. Even when not picketing, civil servants have mostly stopped turning up to work. Shoresh will stay open, though, Hassan insists, if only because it treats wounded peshmerga. “We feel obligated to serve them as they’re giving their lives to defend us.”

But Hassan and his colleagues are furious at the proposed pay cuts. “A doctor’s salary is about $1,000 [per month], now they’re saying it’s going to be $500, can you imagine what that does to people already in debt?” asks Hassan. “The government says we have to tolerate the situation, but people blame corruption.”

Corruption is referenced constantly by Kurds who believe that the political elite have syphoned the region’s oil wealth. But blaming corruption is—at most—a partial explanation, according to those with an understanding of the KRG’s finances. “The problem runs deeper,” says Djene Bajalan. “It’s a structural issue and people haven’t accepted that yet.”

Bajalan is a dual-ethnicity Welsh Kurd who lectures on Kurdish history and politics at the American University of Iraq at Sulaimani (AUIS). Set on an attractive campus on the road out of town, the institution was established in 2007 with a view to bringing Western liberal arts educations to Iraq. Today Bajalan shares an office with three other staff members—a result of the AUIS’s own economic reforms, which started much earlier than the KRG’s.

In its early years AUIS spent millions to attract foreign academics. “They vastly overspent,” Bajalan says. When the money ran out they made cuts to salaries and the university’s administration; doing away with free cookies, taking out lights to save electricity, even removing paper towels from the toilets. “AUIS is probably the most efficient thing in Kurdistan right now,” Bajalan says.

With Kurdistan now going through its own tough transition, Bajalan says unrealistic expectations are still an issue. “Politicians were telling the people that we were going to be like Gulfi sheikhs, which was code word for ‘no one will have to work any more,’ ” says Bajalan. “The social contract was that you don’t complain too much as long as we feed you and provide light work. That economy is no longer possible.”

He references a tweet by deputy prime minister Qubad Talabani that sums up the situation: “We have a staggering 1.4m people paid by the government. Easy when oil price is $100 per barrel. Very hard @$28”

Roughly three in four working-age Kurds receive a government salary. Many don’t even have job titles. An unknown number are “ghost” employees, who collect salaries without working. So far, reform proposals have not addressed this. “There has been no decisive decision on cutting the number of employees yet,” says Dara Khailany, an economic adviser to Talabani. “But a committee will be looking into that.”

Even the opposition Gorran movement, whose name means “change” and which formed in 2008 aiming to reform Kurdistan’s patronage system, is not supportive of deep payroll cuts. Sardar Aziz, a parliamentary adviser for the movement, says he does not believe that civil servants should be punished without reforming a system that only empowers the political elite. “My fear is that the government thinks if they are able to pay the man with a gun, they will be able to abandon the rest,” he says over a crackling phone line. “Kurdish people don’t want to see their country become somewhere like Syria but slowly, slowly everything will crumble.”

International observers are also watching with concern. Maria Fantappie is the Iraq analyst for the International Crisis Group, an NGO which tracks developing conflicts. On a call from her office in Istanbul, she notes that deputy prime minister Talabani has been warning for months that the risk of economic collapse is now the biggest threat to the region. “ISIS undoubtedly is a security threat but the larger problem is to govern your people well,” she says. “If you cannot do that you will face spread dissatisfaction, unrest and foreign interference.”

The worst case scenario—an implosion—has precedent in the 1990s, when the Kurds fought a brutal civil war. While most believe that erstwhile enemies the KDP and PUK have too much to lose by resuming outright hostilities, Fantappie notes that the same anger and distrust of government that sparked violent protests in October is intensifying. “This sort of dissatisfaction can be easily monopolized by a political group who want to use this to their advantage,” she says.

Bajalan agrees, suggesting that with a diminished financial pie, “you’re going to see more fighting over the slice that’s left.”

In speaking to Kurds, a clear generation gap emerges: those who grew up in the good times are angry, while the older are more stoic. MERI’s Ala’Aldeen finds optimism in the belief that oil prices won’t drop any lower. “If people withstand the pressure now for a few months while it gets worse, inevitably there will be recovery,” he says.

Tolerating hardship will be easier for those who have been through it before, says Gen. Latif. “If your stomach has gone hungry once, the second time isn’t as bad.”

The Iraqi Kurds and then came ISIL: Al Jazeera Exclusive

Al Jazeera Article by Tanya Goudsouzian:

A view of Sulaimania city, northern Iraq [Tanya Goudsouzian/Al Jazeera]

It took two planes, a road trip and a rinky-dink speedboat to get me to Iraq's Kurdish region in January 2003. It was the run-up to the US-led invasion. Journalists were competing to get in. But neighbouring Iran, Turkey and Syria weren't making it easy.

After a six-day wait in Damascus, I flew in on a rickety charter plane, landing in the border town of Qamishli; the rest of the journey was by car, past the oil rigs, and into Malakia; and finally, a speedboat across the Tigris River. 

The assignment - gauge the mood in the run-up to the war.

"Nobody knows much about the Kurds," my editor had told me, flippantly. "Let's humanise them. Find out what they eat, whether they go to the cinema, what they think of the upcoming US invasion …"

I spoke to a cross section of Kurds, from shopkeepers in the bazaars, truck drivers, communists, former political prisoners, survivors of the 1991 gassing of Halabja, Peshmerga commanders to civil society activists.

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Also read: A growing identity crisis for Iraqi Kurds

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Abdullah, a fruits and vegetables vendor at the Erbil bazaar, had told me back then: "We hope Saddam will be removed. Maybe then, the local government can focus a little bit more on our plight."

Sulaimania bazaar [Tanya Goudsouzian/Al Jazeera]

The optimism was unanimous. The US had to invade, Saddam Hussein had to go, and so did the crippling sanctions that had so cruelly impeded progress in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region. For the Kurds, the war represented hope for a tantalisingly better future. 

In Erbil, I interviewed Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). In Sulaimania, I interviewed Jalal Talabani, leader of the rival party, Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). 

The next time I visited Iraqi Kurdistan, in the winter of 2005, it was a time to build. Fortune was flowing into the region, mostly from the Gulf countries and Turkey. Kurdish-administered northern Iraq was a blank slate; and adventurous, far-sighted businessmen from around the world were swooping in. 

"The Kurdistan region is open for business," KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani told me in an interview in 2006.

There would soon be two new airports, several new housing projects, shopping malls, five-star hotels and Western fast-food chains. Still, in the midst of this investment frenzy, average Kurds endured hardships, such as regular power shortages, poor healthcare, an overstretched education system, and rents going up at a faster rate than public sector salaries.

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Also read: Iraqi Kurds: 'Losing to ISIL is not an option'

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I travelled back and forth for a few years, but I was most struck by what I noticed in 2010. It was weeks before the parliamentary elections, and the city was abuzz with rumours. Just a few months earlier, a new political party calling itself "Gorran"(Change) had emerged. It was the first significant newcomer on the Iraqi-Kurdish political scene, dominated for decades by the PUK and KDP.

Sulaimania is surrounded by mountains. We're buffered. If it weren't for the mountains, you'd probably hear the shelling. Security source

The party capitalised on the economic stagnation and general malaise over a sense that Sulaimania was lagging behind the regional capital, Erbil, which appeared to be drawing the lion's share of foreign investment. 

"Have you seen Erbil? How many skyscrapers they're building over there?" one young Sulaimania resident asked me. "They're finally building one here in Suly, but it's just one."

And so I went to visit the site of the city's first skyscraper, the upcoming Grand Millennium Hotel - a miniature replica of Dubai's signature Burj al-Arab. Proud residents of Sulaimania had already dubbed it the "Burj Sulaimania".

I followed with interest a year later, shortly after the outbreak of the Arab Spring. Demonstrations erupted on the Kurdish street, too. Some claimed these were orchestrated by Gorran, for political ends; others said the protests were a genuine expression of public dissatisfaction with the regional government's failure to ease daily hardships. 

Not much came of those protests, however. Kurds appeared unwilling to risk grappling with the post-Spring repercussions.

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Also read: The man who would be king of Kurdistan

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Last week, I got to return to Iraqi Kurdistan; my first trip back in five years. When I landed at Sulaimania Airport, security officers gave me an eye-scan and took my fingerprints on fancy machines. I remembered my first visit via speedboat, setting foot on muddy Kurdish shores in the cold of winter.

Sheikh Jaffar, commander of the Peshmerga's 70th Brigade, speaks to Al Jazeera [Lara Fatah/Al Jazeera]

A snazzy new jazz bar had just opened up at the upscale Copthorne Hotel. It was the place to see and be seen. There were also several Lebanese restaurants with sprawling gardens and outdoor seating; an Italian restaurant offering homemade gelato; and a dusty antique shop in an old Ottoman-era home that had been converted into a trendy eatery.

On the face of it, there was little to suggest that the region's revered Peshmerga were fighting yet another existential war only 60 kilometres away; not against Saddam's army, but against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

"Sulaimania is surrounded by mountains," a well-placed security source told me one evening, over tea on his porch. "We're buffered. If it weren't for the mountains, you'd probably hear the shelling."

With much of the construction nearly complete, Erbil now boasts a skyline fit for any self-respecting Gulf country. High-end housing complexes, a sushi bar, franchise fast-food restaurants, such as Hardee's and KFC, shops and international chain hotels, such as the Rotana and Divan, with the Marriott and Hilton soon to come.

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Also read: Festive spirit eludes Iraqi Kurds on Eid holidays

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But the city's spectacular skyline belies the recent regional developments that have essentially turned it into a ghost town. Its pavement cafes, restaurants and ritzy hotels were once full of foreigners and expatriates. But the ongoing war with ISIL has spoiled investor appetites. The five-star hotels now cater exclusively to the few security and NGO types who have not vacated.

"If only you had come back a year ago, and then you'd have really seen something," one local businessman, who owns a popular cafe, a shopping mall and a hotel, told me. "Things were different. Things were moving. And then ISIL happened."

In contrast to all the flashy consumerist additions to the region, Iraq's Kurds appear to be in a state of suspended animation. The hope of 2003 has been replaced with trepidation. If yesterday everything hinged on the removal of Saddam Hussein, today, everything they achieved hinges on whether or not their leadership can maintain a semblance of unity and hold the line against ISIL. Or else, all will come undone.

"We're just waiting now," the businessman told me. "Maybe it will pick up again when the war is over."

Tanya Goudsouzian

Tanya Goudsouzian is a media professional with extensive experience in post-conflict countries.

Source: Al Jazeera

The Return of the Yazidis by Richard Spencer (Telegraph)

In the last few months, a quiet project has set up rat runs for the thousands of people still held as hostages - or worse - by Isil. Gradually, the Yazidis are coming home.

By Richard Spencer, Wednesday 19 August 2015 (The Return of the Yazidis)

The column of escaping women appeared on the hillside as the sun was starting to sink in the sky. There were 21 of them, from babes in arms to the middle-aged, and they had been dodging Islamic State patrols from three o’clock that morning. 

For Ibrahim Mirza, the Iraqi police officer who was waiting for them on the mountain in his Kia Sorento car, it was a bitter-sweet moment. Among the group were his mother, one of his teenage sisters, and a baby niece. Until that afternoon, when his sister managed to get a phone call through to him, he had not known whether they were alive or dead. 

“I was so happy to see them," he said. But he was still fearful; he did not yet know what had happened to them in the weeks they had been missing. Moreover, there were just these three: there was still no sign of his father or the twenty or so other members of his immediate family who had been kidnapped by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant three weeks before. 

He piled all 21 women into and on to his Kia, and set off up the hill away from the front lines. “There are still dents in the roof,” he told me. 

Farida, 18, and her mother Zuhra, in a tent near a refugee camp in Ba'adre, Iraq, Aug. 2015. Holly Pickett 

On August 3 a year ago, Isil jihadists swept across the Nineveh plain into the towns around Mt Sinjar, in north-west Iraq, the homeland of the Yazidi people.

The Yazidis were previously known, if at all, as an exotic bunch, a minority even among the Middle East’s patchwork of sects: based on Zoroastrianism, their faith involves the worship of a “Peacock Angel”, called Malek Taus. 

To Isil, they are at best pagans, at worst, devil-worshippers, and according to its ideology, that means its men can be killed and its women seized and forced into sexual and other servitudewith impunity. This is what Isil did to tens of thousands of the Yazidis, including the Mirza clan. 

They were taking the girls to a “sorting ceremony” , to be assessed for prettiness, and sold 

But the Mirzas are fighting back. While the story of the Yazidis is one of unremitting horror, it is also one of resilience. 

In the last few months, a quiet project run by volunteers, smugglers, community leaders and the government of the Kurdistan Autonomous Region of northern Iraq has set up rat runs for the thousands of people still held as hostages - or worse - by Isil. Gradually, Yazidis like this family are coming home. 

In Mr Mirza’s case, the family reunion began with his sister, Farida*, and her charge up the mountain. 

The night before, she and the 20 other women and girls had been taken from the temporary prison where they had been held and stuffed into the back of a truck, on their way to one of Isil’s grotesque “sorting ceremonies”, a military victor’s version of a beauty pageant. The women were to be assessed for prettiness and distributed - sold - into slavery. 

 

 

Ibrahim Mirza with some of the boys he led out of captivity, in Ba'adre, Iraq, Aug. 2015. Holly Pickett

During the night, the truck came to a halt. In the silence, the women looked out, and saw nothing. Farida thought perhaps the driver had simply stopped for a rest. “Maybe he had fallen asleep,” she said. “We didn’t know, but we ran anyway.” 

They sought refuge in some nearby houses owned by Arab families - a big risk, given that in some of the surrounding Arab villages sectarian feelings run so high that the locals have sided with Isil rather than their old Yazidi neighbours. Luckily, the women found help. 

For the rest of the day, they ran from cover to cover, gradually getting closer to the looming presence of Mt Sinjar above. There lay safety. 

They lined up thousands of men by the roadsides and shot them down 

It was less than two weeks since Sinjar had become, briefly, the most famous place in Iraq. While the jihadists rounded up the residents of the surrounding villages, lining up thousands of men by the roadsides and shooting them down, many others fled up the hill. 

There, helicopter pictures beamed round the world showed tens of thousands of people clamouring for help, in some cases dying of thirst before the world’s eyes in the harsh summer heat. Temperatures at this time of year are regularly above 110F (45C). 

Yazidi people rush towards an aid helicopter, 2014. RUDAW

Eventually, a Kurdish militia from the other side of the Syrian border, which runs to the mountain’s west, came to their rescue, fighting an exit path through Isil lines and leading them down. It turned the mountain from a hell to a haven, one which Farida, her mother Zuhra, and the others were able to exploit. 

For Mr Mirza, it was three down, but many more to go. 

The treatment of Yazidi girls under Isil rule has been widely recorded - partly by Isil itself, in articles explaining how in its view rape is compatible with Islamic law, or Sharia. 

An article in Isil’s online magazine, Dabiq, said, “After capture, the Yazidi women and children were divided according to the Sharia amongst the fighters of the Islamic State who participated." The article went on to use the traditions of the early Islamic conquests to justify taking polytheist captives into sexual slavery. 

“There was nothing they did not do to us” 

The abuse is unremitting, and it started as soon as they were taken, according to Farida and one of her cousins, Marwa*. “There was nothing they did not do,” said Farida. Both girls are just 18. 

Farida does not go into detail, at least not in front of strangers and her father, Mustafa, who is present. She speaks fluently, often breaking into laughter that is betrayed as hollow only when she looks away. 

Marwa, on the other hand, shakes as she speaks. 

She was initially held in a large holding cell and “everything you can imagine” was done to her. “Many of us were beaten and hurt in many ways,” she says. “I wanted to die”. 

 

After ten days, she was taken to the Syrian town of Raqqa, Isil’s de facto capital, having been bought by a family there: an Isil fighter, his wife, and two children. 

Although young and pretty, she was not used for sex by this fighter, she says, but as a household servant, mainly cleaning. 

She was not allowed out of the house at all; but apart from the raw fact of her servitude she was not badly treated, including by the fighter, she said, and in fact owed her freedom to his wife. 

The Kurdish government paid $3,300 US to buy her back 

She eventually took pity, telling Marwa she should be with her family. She found a middle-man to sell her back and drive her to safety. The Kurdish government paid the $3,300 US and Marwa was driven to the nearby Turkish border, and then back to Iraq, arriving after four days of travel last November. 

As in Farida’s case, there were tears as well as joy in her return. She found three of her brothers. Of the fourth, and of her father, there was and remains no news. 

ISIL fighters during a parade in Raqqa, Syria, 2014. Raqqa Media Center via AP

The day the jihadists came had been a desperate one for Ibrahim Mirza and his wife, Zuhra*. Like other families, they had tried to escape as Isil swarmed into Sinjar, the biggest town in the arid foothills of the mountain that is at the centre of the Yazidis’ homeland. 

But Isil had stopped their vehicles and told them to go home. They had no choice but to obey. 

Outside the town, people were not even given that choice: it is now estimated around 5,000 men were massacred on the district’s roadside, 1,600 on that first day. 

The first mass graves are now being exhumed in liberated areas. 

Later, the family was brought to an administrative centre in Sinjar to be imprisoned, in separate rooms for men and women. Samira*, their 16-year-old, was taken away. “They saw her and said, ‘OK, give her to us’. I was crying and trying to refuse but they took her anyway,” said her mother. 

 

 

Marwa, 18, outside a tent near a refugee camp in Ba'adre, Iraq, Aug. 2015. Holly Pickett

Mr Mirza and the other men and boys were held for two months, after which he was set up in a house near the city of Tal Afar. Mr Mirza was set to work as a shepherd, and his one remaining daughter returned to him. 

It is a characteristic of Isil that, once it has murdered and raped its way across conquered territory, it tries to establish a new rule of law. Farmers in the area describe how inspectors arrived, dictating details of the practices they were to follow, down to the exact prices they were allowed to charge for their wheat and tomatoes. 

Finally, they reached the front and made a run for their lines 

This appeared to be the role they now had in mind for Mr Mirza’s decimated family, a normal life on the land, but obedient to Isil’s will. 

Tal Afar is well behind Isil lines, and until April they lived a strange, dislocated normality, not allowed to travel but otherwise just working and keeping house. 

Mr Mirza decided to organise an escape attempt. He had a phone, and was able to call a brother who served in the police in Kurdistan, who hired local smugglers as guides. 

Displaced Yazidis settle in abandoned houses in Mount Sinjar, 2014. REUTERS/Rodi Said

One night, 33 people from several families made a dash for it, with Mr Mirza and the smugglers at their head. For three days, they made their way 45 miles across country, walking by night and hiding out in abandoned houses when it was light, circumventing Isil checkpoints. 

The most difficult thing, he said, was keeping the children from making a noise when Isil fighters were nearby. The group had taken no supplies so as to travel light, but it was hard going in the thirst of an early summer heat-wave. 

Finally, they reached the front. He was still in touch with his brother, who had warned the Kurdish army, the Peshmerga, to expect them and not open fire. They made a run for their lines. 

“Life could begin again,” he said. 

The Yazidis have a reputation for honour killing 

That is true, up to a point. Most of Mr Mirza’s family is now with him. They have been given a house next to one of the sprawling refugee camps that are now dotted across the baking hills of Iraqi Kurdistan. 

There the Yazidis and Christians, driven out of the Nineveh plains at the same time, survive on small food hand-outs until they can somehow return home or find permanent asylum elsewhere. 

The Yazidis follow conservative social customs and they have a reputation for honour killing - especially for women who try to marry outside of the sect. 

Their religion, though, is generous and open, welcoming all-comers to visit its holiest place, the temple of Lalish, still under Kurdish government control in the hills near the city of Dohuk, north-east of Sinjar. 

In the cool of the temple, followers hang knotted scarves, each knot representing a wish. Yazidis have been coming here in droves since last August, seeking refuge and solace, and in some cases to wash away their pain and shame 

 

 

Lalish temple, near Shekhan, Iraq, Aug. 2015. Wishes are represented by fabric knots tied to the pillars. Holly Pickett

The spiritual head of the Yazidis is known as Baba Sheikh, and he made a key intervention on behalf of his people, one that may seem obvious to outsiders but has meant enough to his followers for several to mention it. 

He gave a speech in which he said anything that happened while under Isil oppression should be regarded as not having happened. By this, he meant both forcible conversion to Islam, and matters concerning women's "honour", allowing abused girls to be welcomed back into their families and communities without shame. 

She was being held east of Mosul with five other girls 

This is a great comfort to Zuhra, the mother of the family. But it only goes so far: it will not bring back the 12 brothers and nephews she has lost. 

Nor will it bring back her daughter Samira. 

The family know where she is. For a while, she was able to get messages out on a mobile phone that she had hidden. She was being held, she said, in a house in the once-Christian town of Qaraqosh, east of Mosul, along with five other girls. She spent much of their conversations crying. 

The Yazidi spiritual leader Baba Sheikh in Dohuk, Iraq, 2014. Emrah Yorulmaz/Getty Images

They haven’t heard from her in several weeks aside from one call three weeks ago, which she made on an Isil phone to commence the bartering process. 

The going rate is normally $3-6,000 US for the return of a girl, but she had been told to ask for 15,000; right from the start, she was singled out for her good looks, her father said. 

“She has told us she is not in good health,” Mr Mirza said. “We do not really know how she is, or what has happened to her, but she has not been well treated.” 

What is the future for the Yazidis? Some of their territory has been recovered, with the help of the Kurdish Peshmerga and the PKK, the guerrilla group, and of US-led coalition air strikes. But these forces have not been able to clear more than a quarter of Sinjar town, and the battle lines have been stuck for several months. 

 

 

Khanke refugee camp for displaced persons, including Yazidis, in Nineveh governate, Iraq, Aug. 2015. Holly Pickett

At least 400,000 Yazidis are displaced, from a total population in Iraq of 600,000. In all, there are two million refugees from the war. 

There are few social services, not least for the traumatised girls. For all her smiles, Farida, the teenager who made it up the mountain with her mother, has tried to slit her wrists. She is embarrassed as she shows the scars. 

On their hillside, with nowhere to go, the family nonetheless say there is no going back either. There is a determination, that in the middle of the horror, human values and relations come before anything else, even their land. History, in any case, has been lost behind a veil of brutality. 

“We don’t want the past back,” Marwa said. “We don’t even want our land back. We just want our prisoners back.” 

*The Mirza family agreed to be photographed for this story, but The Telegraph has changed their names. 

Read more from the Telegraph's Foreign desk

Find more in-depth articles at Telegraph.co.uk/longreads

Foster Friess: A Man of Courage and Compassion

Well, this article may not tell the whole story of what's going in the heart of Foster Friess, but I was just really struck by his honesty, his courage, and compassion for the Kurds in this FoxNews interview. Please check it out and read the article too:

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4097944068001/billionaire-foster-friess-joins-fight-against-isis-in-iraq/?#sp=show-clips

New Player in the ISIS War: Christian Gazillionaire Foster Friess

by: Tim Mak

He’s best known for bankrolling Republicans Rick Santorum and Scott Walker afloat, but Foster Friess has a new cause a long way from D.C. 

Republican megadonor Foster Friess is shifting his sights from political campaigns to a military campaign: to fight ISIS and save Kurdish lives.

Behind the scenes, the conservative Christian has been traveling to the Middle East to support the vulnerable Kurdish minority in Iraq, and then coming back to the U.S. to lobby for arming and training their militias, known as the Peshmerga. These forces are on the front lines of the war with ISIS.

“They are fighting our fight and we have treated them disgracefully in terms of the armaments we have provided. Not only am I embarrassed to be an American, I’m actually ashamed,” Friess told The Daily Beast. Arming the Kurds, he added, would help “defeat a ghastly evil that is running amok.”

Some pro-Kurdish advocates have interpreted Friess’s interest to mean that he wants to raise a volunteer military force to aid the Kurds, or arm them through private funds. But Friess told The Daily Beast that is not on the table, at least not for now.

One of his informal advisers, retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Ernie Audino, seem to be singing from a slightly different hymnal.

“There is no reason why this monopoly [for equipping] should be owned by the U.S. government. I think there’s a role for private organizations to generate private support to help the Kurds,” said Audino, who as a soldier was stationed in Kurdistan for a year. “Foster and I are certainly talking about it, in concept… No one’s pulled the trigger on it.”

Last November, Friess traveled to the front lines of the Kurdish battle with ISIS, visiting a Peshmerga military camp called “Black Tiger.”

“When I visited Camp Black Tiger I was amazed to see how many of the fighters had come out of retirement and were in their 40s and 50s,” Friess said. “I had tears in my eyes to see the Yazidis [an ethnic minority]... as I passed out 5,000 blankets to them which our family had purchased from Turkey.  To think they had to leave their homes and everything they owned and only had the clothes on their backs was indeed sad.”

Friess is primarily known for funding socially conservative causes, including hundreds of thousands of dollars to former Sen. Rick Santorum’s last presidential run. He spent more than a million on Koch-related causes, and six figures to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s 2012 recall campaign.

He backs all that with a net worth The Wall Street Journal has estimated at just north of half a billion dollars.

But Friess is no stranger to controversy, having stirred up outrage on the left during the 2012 presidential campaign when, as a prominent backer of Rick Santorum, the 74-year-old said that women in his day put aspirin “between their knees” as contraception.

“There is no reason why this monopoly [for equipping] should be owned by the U.S. government. I think there’s a role for private organizations to generate private support to help the Kurds.”

More disturbing, perhaps, is the fact that Friess’s website promotes books by well-known Islamophobes like Frank Gaffney and Robert Spencer, who helped inspire Norweigan mass murderer and terrorist Anders Breivik. (Although, it should be noted, the website also promotes moderate Islamic groups.)

In the Capitol, Friess has pressed lawmakers to expand airstrikes against ISIS, to help train and equip the Peshmerga, and expand humanitarian aid. He is also insistent on a rhetorical change: that politicians stop referring to the “war on terror.” Instead, he wants the world to take arms against the “global jihadist movement.”

The Kurdish military wish list is long, reflecting the nature of its grinding, daily fight with ISIS. They want counter-IED tools, anti-tank weapons, mine-resistant vehicles, and surveillance equipment.

“[Friess is] shooting for practical targets. What’s the most practical target right now? The easiest target right now is, let’s help the United States directly equip the Kurds,” said Brig. Gen. Audino, who serves as an informal adviser to Friess on Kurdish issues. “He has a genuinely good heart, and he wants to stay on the right side of history… He sees the awful slaughter of innocents in Iraq and Syria right now. He doesn’t see that ending at Iraqi and Syrian borders.”

ISIS could be pushed back, Friess said, if the United States would provide the Kurds with “Apache helicopters and tanks and anti-tank weapons,” as well as a more aggressive air campaign.

Some have interpreted the multimillionaire’s support for the Kurds as openness to privately funding their cause. Last month, an email from Friess to Sen. Rand Paul was leaked to the Washington Examiner’s David Drucker. In it, Friess urges Paul to support the Kurds. In particular, he asked the White House hopeful whether he’d support raising a force to aid their fight.

“Would you support a volunteer force from our military or contractors? I received a request from 2,000 young Christian men for help in training and arming. They want to protect their vulnerable, unprotected Christian community 30 miles from ISIS,” Friess wrote.

Audino, the retired general, said that while the businessman’s primary effort was to get the American government to directly arm the Kurds, they have talked about privately doing so as well, hypothetically.

Small wonder that rumors have been spreading among anti-ISIS Westerners that Friess could soon be bankrolling their efforts. Matthew VanDyke runs a security contracting firm called Sons of Liberty International in Iraq, which provides free military training to local Christians in Kurdish and Iraqi areas. He said he had heard that Friess “pledged to help fund the Peshmerga,” and had been looking to get in touch with him ever since.

But asked directly about it, Friess said he was not considering privately raising, training and equipping a militia to defend embattled Christians and Kurds in Iraq and Syria. He wouldn’t comment on the request that he received from the thousands of Christian men that he referenced in the email to Sen. Paul.

The scale of the problem, he said, makes a solution too large to privately finance.

“Do you realize the enormity of what it takes to defeat the enemy? I’m not in the business of financing private armies,” Friess told The Daily Beast.

Friess’s interest in the Kurds can at least in part be explained by his Christian faith, or as the businessman put it, when he “invited Jesus to become the Chairman of the Board of my life.”

American Christians have been generally supportive of the Kurds due to their role in protecting Christians in post-Saddam Iraq. Evangelical figures like former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Pat Robertson have touted the secular Kurds for their protection of Middle Eastern Christian communities. Though there has historically been animus between Kurds and Christians in the region, there has been in contemporary times a confluence of interests.

“The Kurds have been seen as protectors of the Christians, especially since the fall of Saddam in 2003, when the Christians began to be pushed out of and even murdered in Arab Iraq. By contrast the Christians have been thriving in the Kurdish region of Iraq,” said Professor Michael Gunter, who has written 11 books on the Kurdish people.

Since the proclamation of a so-called Islamic State last year, outside players have jumped into the ISIS war. From Saudi to Iranian involvement, from American military veterans looking for freelance work to Western jihadists looking for a battle to join, outsiders have flooded into the region for one cause or another.

If a high-profile Christian American businessman were to privately fund weapons in the ISIS battlespace, it would be a problematic foray into an already-nasty sectarian situation. So far Friess has stayed away from that role. While the Kurds welcome any help they can get from Christian Americans, ISIS has framed its war as one of them versus the “crusaders.”

In January, for example, ISIS urged its followers in the West to “to target the crusaders in their own lands and wherever they are found.”

The money Friess has thus far spent on the Kurdish cause has been slight, as compared to his financial commitments to political candidates. He spent some $50,000 on blankets as humanitarian aid to the Yazidis, another minority group in Iraq.

Awat Mustafa, who works at a Kurdish humanitarian aid group called the Barzani Charity Foundation, met Friess during the National Prayer Breakfast this year. Friess invited Mustafa to his office, and they’ve been tossing ideas back and forth ever since. Mustafa said he submitted a funding proposal, for humanitarian assistance to the millions of refugees in Kurdish areas, and hopes to get funding in the realm of six figures or more.

“I'm sure he’s going to be one of our big donors, no doubt about it,” Mustafa said. “In the past he has already donated some money for refugees in the Kurdistan region.”

Perhaps Friess’s most impactful effort for the Kurds has been in using his weight to press Congress to help them. Foster has wielded his influence to lobby lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to support Kurdish militias, including such figures as Democratic lawmakers Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.

“Foster Friess agrees with me on this issue—in order for there to be military success on the ground and defeat ISIS, the U.S. must provide the heavy weapons and arms directly to trusted fighters, such as the Kurds,” Gabbard said.

On the Republican side, Friess’s role is praised.

“He’s a good friend of the Kurds, and he’s made a real difference. He’s provided his own money, among other things… and had an effect on opinion here [in the Senate]. He’s one of their strongest advocates,” Sen. John McCain told The Daily Beast.

Added Sen. Lindsey Graham: “He’s gotten to know the Kurds well. He’s very passionate.” 

And there may be some coming legislative efforts: Sen. John Barrasso, Gabbard and others huddled with Friess in Graham’s conference room last month to work on a bill called the Kurdish Emergency Relief Act, the Washington Examinerreported, which would involve some $500 million in aid for the Kurdish people. The legislation has not yet been introduced.

 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/05/new-player-in-the-isis-war-christian-gazillionaire-foster-friess.html

BBC accounts of civilians living in Mosul

Mosul diaries: A terrifying night

Civilians in Mosul face danger from the sky and the ground, as US-led coalition aircraft try to bomb Islamic State (IS) targets. The city came under the control of IS in June, with the group introducing a strict regime in line with their radical interpretation of Islamic law.

In a series of diaries, Mosul residents describe life under IS. Their names have been changed to protect their identities.

11 December 2014

From Mays

Our suffering due to the water shortage has turned into a state of fear that won't go away. 

My husband goes on to the roof every day to see if the water tanks have been filled by the electrical pump from the main water supply. 

On one unforgettably terrifying night, I decided to go on to the roof with my husband to help him. 

We suddenly heard a loud explosion followed by loud voices from the nearby street. 

We quietly and carefully shifted to peer at the road where we heard the explosion and the voices. 

We saw a group of Islamic State fighters shooting in the air, and I feared for my husband because they were banging on doors searching for men in the area in order to question them.

Trembling with fear

It turned out that the explosion was caused by a bomb planted on one of the IS vehicles.

Within a few seconds the terrifying sound of fighter jets filled the sky, and they starting bombing IS fighters. 

IS vehicles were full of ammunition and we kept hearing explosions for over three hours.

I was trembling with fear for my husband and my children and dreading the sound of the doorbell. But thankfully the aerial bombardment caused a great deal of confusion among IS fighters, and they didn't knock on our door.

When the sun rose we managed to see the extent of the damage to the houses and the street caused by the bombing.

We decided to leave our house and stay at a relative's place for a few days because I was afraid for my family.

Click here for the rest of the story

This is what we're up against.

In a recent newsletter published by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) an incredible 'snapshot' of the humanitarian needs in Iraq emerged. I post it here and encourage a thorough look:

BBC - Analysis: Could support for the 'other' Kurds stall Islamic State?

Analysis: Could support for the 'other' Kurds stall Islamic State?

Here's the answer...

By Cale Salih and Mutlu CivirogluKurdish affairs analysts

Syrian Kurdish YPG fighters have by standing up to Islamic State for months, with very little outside help.

The US and European countries have started arming and co-ordinating with the Kurds to fight the Islamic State (IS). But the Kurds are by no means a monolithic body, raising the question: are Western powers really helping the Kurds who can most effectively take on IS and rescue besieged civilians?

In short, the answer is - by and large - no. The West is officially arming only the Iraqi Kurds, even though Kurdish groups from Syria and Turkey affiliated with a US-designated terrorist group - the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) - are playing an equally, if not more critical, role in the fight against IS.

It is a complicated picture that involves a bewildering list of Kurdish acronyms:

• KRG: Kurdistan Regional Government - the official governing body of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq

• KDP: Kurdistan Democratic Party - the dominant Iraqi Kurdish party, led by Massoud Barzani

• PKK: Kurdistan Workers' Party - Turkish Kurdish party led by Abdullah Ocalan (jailed since 1999)

• PYD: Democratic Unity Party - PKK-aligned party in Syria

• YPG: Popular Protection Units - PYD-aligned armed force in Syria

Massoud Barzani and Abdullah Ocalan, who espouse competing models of Kurdish nationalism, have been vying to emerge as the pre-eminent leader of the Kurds transnationally.

The Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga have been supported by the US military

They compete in this quest using their domestic influences and proxy parties in neighbouring countries.

Ocalan's model has evidently won out over Mr Barzani's in Syria. The PYD and YPG are the dominant political and military powers in predominately Kurdish north-eastern Syria (known to Kurds as Rojava) respectively.

The YPG has been exceptionally successful in fighting IS, in many cases outperforming the Western-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA).

While IS, formerly known as Isis, has made alarming gains against FSA-aligned groups, the YPG has successfully ousted the jihadist group from Kurdish towns and cities.

But Mr Barzani in Iraqi Kurdistan has one thing that Ocalan does not: widespread international legitimacy and relatively stable relations with the West.

Perhaps that is why the KDP has expressed its unease with the increasingly prominent role of the PKK-affiliated forces in fighting IS in Iraq and rescuing thousands of Yazidi civilians trapped on Mt Sinjar.

'Will to resist'

Some KDP officials have downplayed the role of the YPG and PKK fighters in these efforts. Yet, according to the testimonies Yazidis who escaped Mt Sinjar, and numerous journalists who visited the mountain, YPG and PKK fighters have played an enormously important part in the rescue and protection efforts.

When asked by BBC's HardTalk earlier this month why Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters had appeared to melt away when fighting IS in key contested towns, Masrour Barzani, the head of the KRG's National Security Council, responded: "The problem is that the Peshmerga do not have the same kinds of weapons [as IS has] to fight back."

The PYD says YPG fighters are more battle-hardened than the Peshmerga

But according to Alan Semo, the PYD's representative in the UK, weapons are not the most important thing Kurdish forces need - rather, it is the will and ability to fight.

He says the YPG, battle-hardened from its recent experiences in Syria, has the lion's share of that.

"How is it that in three years, the YPG in Rojava with only simple weapons and limited resources, managed to defeat Isis? But in 48 hours, some criminal gangs from Raqqa and Anbar with the support of Baathists took half [of Iraq], the biggest oil refinery, and the second biggest city? he asked.

"The problem is not a matter of weapons… it's about the will to resist."

Key victories

YPG spokesman Polat Can described how the YPG created a safe passage from Mt Sinjar into Syria, and transported besieged Yazidi civilians into Kurdish-controlled Syria.

Thousands of Yazidis have been given refuge in Kurdish-controlled Syria

In addition to facilitating the rescue of civilians trapped on Mt Sinjar, YPG and PKK fighters have secured critical victories against IS in Iraq, in particular in Makhmour.

The YPG helped re-secure the Rabia border crossing in June after the Iraqi army - and reportedly some Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga - fled their posts.

And it was the PKK that recently moved into Lalesh - the Yazidis' holiest site, tucked away in a valley near Dohuk - to ensure its protection.

Kurdish social media is circulating videos showing Iraqi Kurds expressing their gratitude to the PKK for its role in defending their cities.

Crucial partner?

For their successes in fighting IS, the US and Europe may consider the YPG and the PKK to be as deserving of international support as is the KRG.

In particular, the YPG could be a crucial partner to the West in orchestrating efforts with the YPG to rescue and protect Yazidis and other minorities at risk of religious persecution in the Sinjar region.

The Turkish Kurdish PKK has been involved in the drive against IS in northern Iraq

Unlike the PKK, the YPG is not explicitly designated as a terrorist group by the US and EU - this implies greater Western flexibility in dealing with the YPG than with the PKK.

Indeed, US officials have hinted that they are considering bolstering the Syrian Kurdish force to fight IS in Syria.

The PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984, demanding greater autonomy for Turkey's Kurds. It is regarded by Turkey, the US and European Union as a terrorist organisation because of its attacks on Turkish security forces and civilians

But the PKK and Turkey are now knee-deep in a problematic but promising peace process. The Turkish government now speaks and makes deals directly with Ocalan - there may come a point where Turkey's international allies have to decide whether to do the same.

Cale Salih is a researcher specialising in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. Follow her @callysally

Mutlu Civiroglu is a Washington DC-based Kurdish affairs analyst focusing on Syria and Turkey. Follow him @mutludc

July 4th - The Dawn of a New Nation

Each year we try to have our own little celebration on our country's independence day, but something significant happened during this year's July 4th celebration that will forever set it apart from all the others. The Kurdistan Regional Government (just the day before) formally announced their intention to work towards independence and the formation of a new Kurdish nation.

Of course, just like America's formal declaration of independence, it was not well received by the "mother country", but also frowned upon pretty severely by the Iranian government - our neighbor to the East. Turkey was at first supportive, now calmly silent on the issue.

Inflaming the issue further, Israel announced that they had bought the first shipment of oil exported out of Kurdistan bringing a bit of shame to the Kurdish government and loads of ire amongst their Shia brethern down south. "Once we take care of ISIS we will deal with you," one Shia MP was reported as saying to the Kurdish MPs.

In lieu of actual fireworks then, a battle of twisted, fire-breathing words have been exchanged threatening the stability that Kurdistan has enjoyed these past 10+ years. They've been backed up with a virtual economic war between Erbil and Baghdad. With the latter withholding needed gov't salaries for over 6 months (basically this entire year), and now cutting off cargo supplies into the region.

Erbil has threatened to cut off water supplies that trickle down south, and used the opportunities provided by the retreating Iraqi army to take over huge swaths of land around Kirkuk - the "holy grail" of Kurdish territorial ambitions.

And so we have a war -- the frequent response when a party demands it's freedom -- but, Baghdad is so embroiled with their conflicts with ISIS to do much of anything about it, and it just might be the Kurds day in the end.

But, we needn't expect it all to be pretty, and we needn't expect it to be resolved anytime soon.

I think that we sometimes forget that that fateful day in 1776 was the beginning of an all out war with England that took the lives of up to 25,000 soldiers, vast destruction of property, and struggles of various kinds for over 5 years. Yes, 5 long years.

Our "official" independence wasn't actually won till 1783 - 7 years after the declaration of independence was signed -- and we had to defend it again not 30 years later in the War of 1812.

What is it about our world today that demands 'bloodless revolutions' and neat and tidy requests for freedom?

The world is the same today and it was then, and I don't suppose the Kurdish rightful request for independence will be simply agreed to.

But it is their day.

The Kurdish dream of a unified independent nation is at the door. It might get messy, it might endure suffering, but in the end, they will have their country.

 ...

As July 4th came to a close here in Kurdistan, the fireworks couldn't be seen but something else ripped a hole in the sky causing our hearts to skip a beat as we gazed in wonder at lightning bolts filling the heavens. Yes, this is the time for the Kurds, and though the celebrations haven't yet begun, it appears God is anxious to show off his own explosive symbols of freedom on their behalf.