Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is in no mood to hear criticism of his military incursion against Syrian Kurds in the Afrin region from the public, media, or opposition lawmakers. Kurdistan24 notes that he promised to “pulverize” dissidents, and his government is doing exactly that with a wave of investigations and arrests.
President Donald Trump held a telephone conversation with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey on Wednesday afternoon in which he urged caution for Turkey’s military incursion into Syria and called for Turkey to “avoid any actions that might risk conflict between Turkish and American forces.” However, Trump appears to have stopped well short of demanding Erdogan halt the operation against Syrian Kurds.
Turkey is a sovereign nation and the U.S. isn’t going to get into an argument with it. But apparently, Washington isn’t going to stop Ankara from falling off a cliff, either.
Kurdish authorities in northeastern Syria called for a mass military mobilization on Monday as the Turkish incursion into Afrin continued, with artillery strikes expanding to other nearby cities.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Sunday afternoon the beginning of a major military offensive, bizarrely dubbed “Operation Olive Branch,” against America’s battlefield allies in Syria, the Kurdish YPG militia.
An official with Iraq’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) told reporters this week that the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga may deploy to Syria to fight the Turkish military if President Recep Tayyip Erdogan insists on “Operation Olive Branch,” the Turkish name for that nation’s invasion of Syria.
Contents: Turkey begins its air and ground invasion of Syria’s Afrin; China lies about ‘indisputable sovereignty’ in new confrontation in South China Sea; Summary of major Generational Dynamics predictions
Contents: Turkey’s troops mass on border, preparing to invade northern Syria; Collapse of the Russian ‘peace process’; The growing conflagration in northwest Syria
In a speech to the Hoover Institution at Stanford University on Wednesday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the United States would retain a military presence in Syria for the foreseeable future.
The pro-government Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak reported on Thursday that Syrian Kurdish fighters and Turkish soldiers traded “harassment” and “artillery fire” on the border of the two countries, a sign that the two sides may resort to openly attacking each other as tensions soar in the region.
Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is seeking aid from the Vatican and, reportedly, the normalization of ties to Iran three months after President Donald Trump announced Washington would not “take sides” between its longtime allies, the Kurds, and the Iran-backed regime in Baghdad.
Hundreds of people from Iraqi Kurdistan took the streets to violently protest the region’s financial problems this week, urging the autonomous government to combat corruption, pay state salaries in full, and restore public services.
The head of Iran’s Navy, Commander Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi, promised in his first speech since his appointment to “fly the Iranian flag in the Gulf of Mexico,” encouraging Navy officers to consider an Iranian presence in the Atlantic Ocean a pivotal goal and soon-to-be routine occurrence.
Factions of the Iran-backed, largely Shiite militia coalition known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) began fighting each other on Tuesday in Iraqi territory they wrested out of the hands of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), according to a Kurdish news outlet.
Contents: BBC reports hoax by US-led coalition about ISIS evacuation from Raqqa Syria; Syria war violence surges as Bashar al-Assad repeats Aleppo genocide in Ghouta; Apparent coup is in progress in Zimbabwe against 93-year-old Robert Mugabe
A group of Republican lawmakers, veterans, and experts are calling on President Donald Trump to intervene in Iraq to stop a State Department policy that is harming a U.S. ally and allowing Iranian influence to grow.
Iraqi troops and Iran-backed Shiite militia forces launched a new offensive against Kurdish Peshmerga forces in northern Iraq on Thursday. The Kurds reported taking artillery fire from the advancing forces.
Mohamadi Gulpaigani, chief of staff to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Tuesday that by attacking the Kurds in Iraq, Shiite militia guided by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) thwarted a joint Israeli-Kurdish-American plot to create a “second Israel.”
Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton joined SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam on Thursday’s Breitbart News Daily to talk about the situation in the Middle East after the fall of the Islamic State, including the threat of Iran, the diplomatic crisis over Qatar, and the possibility of formally designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.
Christians living in the Nineveh Plains, who only just returned home after the defeat of the Islamic State, are once again on the move, forced to flee as Kurdish fighters clash with Iraqi government forces north of Mosul.
The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), a minority party in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq, has warned that continued attacks by the Iraqi military and Iran-backed Shiite militias could result in another “genocide” campaign against the ethnic group.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson continued his tour through the Middle East and South Asia, joining Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in Baghdad, Iraq, on Monday.
A senior leader within the Iran-backed Shiite terrorist organization Hezbollah has described the invasion of Kurdish-held Kirkuk, Iraq, as “a victory over the U.S. and Israel,” referring to the attack as “our victory” specifically.
“Iranian militias that are in Iraq, now that the fight against Daesh and ISIS is coming to a close, those militias need to go home. The foreign fighters in Iraq need to go home and allow the Iraqi people to regain control,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Sunday.
U.S.-allied fighters in Syria have begun the arduous work of documenting the devastation in Raqqa, the former Islamic State “capital” that the jihadist group has left in near-total destruction.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-Arab coalition supported by the U.S. government, captured Syria’s largest oil field from the Islamic State on Sunday.
State Department Spokeswoman Heather Nauert continued efforts to tamp down the flames threatening to ignite northern Iraq in war Friday.
The BBC reported “fierce clashes between Kurdish and Iraqi troops north of Kirkuk city” on Friday, indicating the Iraqi offensive is proceeding well beyond its originally stated goal of preventing independence-minded Kurds from absorbing Kirkuk and its oil fields into a prospective new state.
Kurdish authorities estimate that 100,000 people have fled Kirkuk, Iraq this week – formerly under control of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) but now lost to the Baghdad government and its Iran-backed Shiite militia allies.
Dr. Sebastian Gorka, chief strategist for the MAGA Coalition and former Deputy Assistant to President Trump, joined SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Thursday’s Breitbart News Daily to talk about the latest political news, media bias, the defeat of the Islamic State in Raqqa, and the Kurdish situation in Iraq.
The Kurdish Rudaw news service reported Wednesday on abusive and offensive behavior by the Iran-backed Shiite militia forces occupying Kirkuk, accused the U.S. military of turning a blind eye to the Iranian invasion, and, most disturbingly, accused Shiite fighters of beheading captured Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers.
Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney joined SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Wednesday’s Breitbart News Daily to talk about Kurdish independence in Iraq, the Iran nuclear deal’s continued survival after decertification, and the rising strategic threat of China.
State Department Spokeswoman Heather Nauert gave an update Tuesday on the difficult situation in which American diplomats find themselves in Iraq as two of their putative allies settle into an armed face-off that threatens to escalate into yet another chapter in the country’s 14-year civil war.
The Yazidi minority in Iraq finds itself in an uncomfortable position as the Kurds consider acting on their successful independence referendum, while Iraqi troops move against Kurdish positions to make such a bid for independence impossible.
A major milestone in the defeat of the Islamic State was reached on Tuesday, as the Kurdish-led, U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced that the Syrian city of Raqqa has been liberated from ISIS.
Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Rob Manning told reporters on Monday that the U.S. military could potentially reconsider supporting the Iraqi military if attacks on Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) territory continued, emphasizing that he would not “speculate” on any future actions at the moment.
The freshly-appointed interim governor of Kirkuk, Rakan Ali al-Jabouri, held a press conference on his first full day in office Tuesday, at which Kurdish police chief Omar Khatab was asked to speak. Khatab was also rather forcefully asked not to speak in Kurdish on three different occasions, even when responding to questions asked in that language by a Kurdish reporter.
The Trump administration on Monday refused to take sides in a brewing civil war in Iraq between its Kurdish allies in the north and the Iraqi government in Baghdad, despite desperate calls from Kurdish leaders to intervene.
President Donald Trump and his State Department issued their first official responses to the latest flare-up of inter-ethnic violence outside Kirkuk, Iraq, in the fallout from Iraqi Kurdistan’s controversial independence referendum Monday afternoon.
Major General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the notorious Quds Force division of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has reportedly been seen in Iraq advising Shiite militias in their attack on the Kurdish Peshmerga, a major U.S. battlefield ally against the Islamic State.
