Kurds - Page 12

The International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed a chemical weapons attack targeting women and children in Mosul, Iraq, this week — likely an Islamic State operation intended to slow the liberation of its regional capital.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry warned that Ankara would not hesitate to bomb the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG/YPJ) should it seek to remain in the city of Manbij following the eradication of the Islamic State from that area. The YPG has been a longtime American ally, and the Pentagon is working to assert that it does not pose a threat to Turkey.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed the war against the Islamic State and a plan to curb Syrian Kurdish influence with the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq (KRG) Masoud Barzani over the weekend.

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) General Joseph Votel made an unannounced visit to Syria last week to meet with the heads of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a militia fighting the Islamic State largely composed of Kurdish fighters.

An argument between Iran and Turkey over their interventions in the Syrian civil war has grown into a clash over regional stability, with Tehran warning Ankara not to “test Iran’s patience.”

Contents: Investigation reveals depraved new atrocities by Syria’s Bashar al-Assad; Epicenter of Syrian conflict moves from Aleppo to Idlib and al-Bab

A report in Kurdish Iraqi media cites Canada’s Defense Ministry as confirming that Ottawa will be shipping new weapons to the Peshmerga, the Kurdish military force fighting the Islamic State in northern Iraq.

A U.S.-backed Syrian force launched a new phase of its campaign to retake the eastern part of Raqqa, the Islamic State’s de facto capital in Syria. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have requested more weapons from its allies in the U.S.-led coalition in order to properly execute the mission.

According to The Washington Post, the Trump administration has decided to scrap the Obama White House plan for recapturing the Islamic State capital of Raqqa in Syria.

Syrian Kurdish fighters belonging to a ground coalition known as the Kurdish-Arab Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) say the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State has provided them with unprecedented weapons support, expressing optimism that President Donald Trump will help their struggle more than the Obama administration did.

Iraqi military officials uncovered a trove of over one hundred artifacts that experts have traced back to the Nimrud archaeological site at the former home of an Islamic State terrorist leader in eastern Mosul.

In an interview with ABC News on Wednesday, President Trump said he would “absolutely do safe zones in Syria” as part of his effort to head off another refugee crisis.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced on Tuesday that the battle to liberate the eastern half of Mosul, the Islamic State’s largest stronghold in the country, had successfully concluded.

Samil Tayyar, a deputy for the ruling AKP Party of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, denounced NATO as a “terror organization” in a weekend interview.

The Syrian peace talks brokered by Russia, Turkey, and Iran have begun in Kazakhstan. The United States does not have a delegation at the talks, although the Kazakh government did send an invitation, with the support of Russia and Turkey (but most definitely not Iran).

Children formerly captive under the Islamic State remain committed to the jihadist ideology into which they have been brainwashed, posing a threat to the Kurdish communities receiving civilians liberated from Islamic State-held areas in Iraq.

The Pentagon has confirmed that among the weapons the Islamic State is using to slow the Iraqi Army’s progress in Mosul are small drones carrying grenade-like explosives, which have caused civilian, as well as military, casualties.

The Turkish Parliament descended into a brawl for the first time in 2017 — but far from the first time in recent memory — following a vote on establishing a presidential system that opponents argument would dangerously consolidate the power of current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The Islamic State is back with another child-soldier video that is even more depraved than the last “Cubs of the Caliphate” release. This time around, the terror state gives us a small child blowing a chained prisoner’s head off in an abandoned amusement park.

On December 29, the Islamic State released another “Cubs of the Caliphate” training video in which child soldiers are shown murdering helpless prisoners.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claims he has proof the U.S. and its allies gave material support to the Islamic State, but his contention repeated most loudly and insistently is that America armed the Kurdish militia in Syria, which Turkey considers an offshoot of the Kurdish separatists it has been battling for decades.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on Thursday that a ceasefire between the Syrian government and opposition forces, brokered and guaranteed by Russia and Turkey, would go into effect at midnight.

At a press conference in Ankara Tuesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed he has “confirmed evidence” that the U.S.-led coalition in the Middle East has given support to the Islamic State.

Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) said in no uncertain terms that his government would consider deploying its Peshmerga soldiers against members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), who have refused to leave Iraq’s northern Sinjar region.

With all eyes on Syria and a global order decayed by invasions, interventions, and arming of rogue factions by the Kremlin, the Democratic Party appears poised to lay the blame for Russian aggression at the foot of President-elect Donald Trump.

A debate over the arrests of dozens of legislators representing the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) triggered another fist-fight in the Turkish parliament this week, where the atmosphere has become increasingly volatile between the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and minority members.

The Turkish government has arrested 235 people and counting following a deadly terrorist bombing near a football (soccer) stadium in Istanbul, claimed by a Kurdish separatist terror group.

Officials in Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) have accused the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of “overt… torture” in the case of the head of their party, Selahattin Demirtaş, arrested in November on charges of aiding terrorism.

You’ve heard of the legendary Trump Steaks — but there’s a new restaurant on the block in Iraqi Kurdistan.

U.S.-led coalition officials involved in the operation to eradicate the Islamic State from Mosul say they have succeeded in curbing the number of vehicle-based suicide bomb attacks on Iraqi troops on the ground by “cratering” the city’s roads and knocking down its bridges.

On Tuesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared that his country’s armed forces were not just in Syria to battle ISIS and al-Qaeda terrorists (and, uncomfortably for U.S. policymakers, America’s Kurdish allies) but were on a mission to overthrow the Syrian regime.

Contents: Turkey, Syria, Kurds, ISIS converging on a major military confrontation in al-Bab; Syrian airstrike on Turkish forces threatens wider war

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sat for an interview with CBS News’s 60 Minutes on Sunday, and he pronounced himself “disillusioned” with the Obama administration’s failure to deal with the Syrian refugee crisis “seriously” or extradite cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Representatives of a variety of United Nations (UN) agencies and non-governmental organizations have warned that the conditions in liberated areas of Mosul, Iraq, have made civilians extremely vulnerable to disease, dehydration, and famine, as the Iraqi military continues to barrel deeper into the city’s Islamic State strongholds.

The Turkish military claims there has recently been at least one instance of infighting between older and newer members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) — a group declared a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States, and other NATO members.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is getting closer to that dictatorship he has always wanted, as proposed changes to the Turkish constitution could keep him in office until 2029.