Kurdistan

The president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq, Nechirvan Barzani, traveled to Tehran on Monday to meet with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who warned him to prevent “anti-revolutionary elements” from getting too friendly with the autonomous Kurdish region.

Turkey carried out airstrikes in Iraq and Syria on Saturday after an attack on a Turkish military base in Iraq killed nine Turkish soldiers.

The government of Turkey announced a bombing campaign on Sunday consisting of airstrikes on 20 alleged strategic positions within the borders of Iraq, a response to a suicide attack against the Turkish General Directorate of Security in Ankara this weekend.

Authorities in Turkey are struggling to house the thousands of people left destitute after a series of massive earthquakes in the country last week, rushing to build tents and transfer earthquake victims to shelters a week later.

Rescuers in northwestern Syria reportedly found a newborn on Monday born under the rubble of her home after a devastating series of earthquakes left much of the west of the country and eastern Turkey entirely leveled.

Paris Police arrested a man in his 60s after at least two people were killed in a shooting at a Kurdish Cultural Centre in central Paris.

Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi visited Iran’s Kurdistan province on Thursday – the home province of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman whom Iranian “morality police” beat to death for allegedly wearing a scarf improperly – dismissing months of nationwide protests and claiming the nation’s ethnic Kurds supported the Islamic regime.

IRAQ – For President Joe Biden, a renewed Middle East crisis lurks just as the Afghan withdrawal debacle enters the rearview mirror and record-high gas prices continue to retreat.

A report by Europol examining terrorism within the EU in 2021 has found that jihadists remain the single biggest threat to the bloc, despite an increasing political focus on right-wing extremists.

U.S. military forces stationed at Al-Harir Air Base in northern Iraq’s Kurdistan Region “mistakenly” fired on at least 11 civilian homes and one civilian car on Monday night in the nearby town of Shaqlawa, the Kurdish news website Rudaw reported.

Christian political leaders in Syria told the Kurdish outlet Rudaw on Monday that the Christian population of that country had dropped from about ten percent of Syrians in 2011, the start of the Syrian Civil War, to three percent of the country in 2021.

Turkish military bombardments targeting sites near Yazidi refugee camps in Iraqi Kurdistan have displaced the camps’ inhabitants in recent weeks, the Kurdish news agency Rudaw reported on Wednesday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a non-governmental organization, revealed this week that it had confirmed the deaths of nearly 500,000 people during the decade-long Syrian civil war.

Islamic State terrorists in Iraq have regrouped and are “now a force” once again threatening to gain control of significant territories in the country, a commander of the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga warned on Wednesday.

Kurdish members of the Iraqi Parliament (MP) and another MP got into a physical brawl Monday night over the latter’s reported insults to the Kurdistan Regional Government and its leaders, Kurdish news outlet Rudaw reported.

Islamist Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned the United States in remarks Monday to stop “siding with terrorists” for Washington’s continued support of Syrian Kurdish groups instrumental to defeating the Islamic State.

Islamic State terrorists executed a “surprise attack” on Iraqi police in Kirkuk, a multi-ethnic region in the nation’s north, late on Thursday, killing an officer and injuring at least three others according to the Kurdish outlet Rudaw.

The Islamic State terror group continues to pose a security threat in areas of northern Iraq disputed between Baghdad and the autonomous Kurdistan region, a leader of Kurdistan’s Peshmerga military said on Tuesday.

A militia loyal to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad attacked the Kurdish Asayesh security forces in Hasaka, in the northeast of the country, on Sunday, breaking a longstanding, tense lull in hostilities between the two sides.

A trial for the shooting of a two-year-old during a high-speed chase between police and suspected smugglers seeking to get to Britain.

Turkish officials and state media outlets have repeatedly accused Armenia this week of recruiting Kurdish fighters from Syria and Iraq to aid in their ongoing military engagement against Azerbaijan, a claim the president of Armenia dismissed as “nonsense” on Wednesday.

Iraq announced a travel ban on the governor of Kirkuk, Rakan al-Jabouri — appointed to restore Baghdad-led leadership and expel Kurdish leadership in the aftermath of the 2017 Kurdish independence referendum — on Tuesday amid charges of criminally misappropriating public funds.

Nearly 3,000 Yazidis remain missing in the wake of the Islamic State invasion of Iraq, which oversaw a systemic effort to eliminate the minority group through genocide and forced assimilation.

Residents of a Christian village in Northern Iraq’s Kurdistan Region have been forced to abandon the settlement in recent months over Turkey’s ongoing military operations in the area, Kurdish outlets reported on Tuesday.

A Turkish drone strike in northeastern Iraq’s Kurdistan Region killed three Kurds on Tuesday, “two members of Iraq’s border guard and the driver of the vehicle they were in,” according to the Iraqi military.

A major hospital in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, said it will only accept Chinese coronavirus patients amid a skyrocketing number of new cases in the region, Kurdish news agency Rudaw reported.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq announced a “total lockdown” of its capital province, Erbil, on Sunday, in an attempt to stop the spread of the Chinese coronavirus.

Drone strikes of unconfirmed origin killed at least six people in Sulaimani province, northern Iraq, on Thursday, including multiple children. The strike, reportedly targeting members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), occurred near what the Kurdish outlet Rudaw described as a “village resort” popular with families.

The government of Iraq announced the shutdown of 20 refugee and internally displaced persons (IDPs) camps in western Anbar province this weekend, stating that people no longer need them as they are returning home.

Members of the few remaining Christian communities of northern Iraq following attempted genocide by the Islamic State told the Kurdish outlet Rudaw this weekend that they are “terrified” as Turkey continues to bomb alleged Kurdish terrorist targets near them.

The government of Turkey announced on Wednesday the launch of Operation Claw-Tiger, a commando ground invasion of northern Iraq to eliminate members and allies of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Kurdish governing authorities in Afrin, northeast Syria, condemned the Turkish government on Wednesday for enabling jihadist groups they say are responsible for killing over 40 people in a bomb blast in the city the day before.

Incensed Iraqi Kurdish officials last week hit back at taunts from Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who lashed out at former Iraqi Kurdistan Region (KRG) President Masoud Barzani and Kurdish Peshmerga forces.

The Chaldean Archdiocese of Erbil issued an impassioned plea for peace Thursday, insisting that the region is “tired of war” and its consequences.

President Emmanuel Macron of France accused the government of Turkey of working with “ISIS proxies” in its campaigns in Syria during remarks alongside President Donald Trump on Tuesday.

A coalition of Kurds, Armenians, Greeks, Cypriots, and supporters organized a large protest outside of the White House on Wednesday against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s meeting with President Donald Trump.