Peshmerga

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that Turkey’s airstrikes against Kurdish militia in Syria would soon be augmented by a major ground invasion. Meanwhile, Iran is launching missiles against Kurds living in the mountains of Iraq and using ground forces to crush protests in Iranian Kurdistan.

(AFP) – French president Emmanuel Macron was to pay a visit Sunday to the Islamic State group’s former Iraqi stronghold Mosul, a day after vowing to keep troops in the country.

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 Gen. Sirwan Barzani warned in an April 6 interview updated Monday that the Islamic State is “coming back with a vengeance” in Iraq, and while ISIS is currently focused on guerrilla fighting and terrorist attacks on civilians, it aspires to “make a powerful comeback” and once again control territory as a caliphate.

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.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has deployed Peshmerga forces to northern Iraq to combat “increased threats” of attacks by Islamic State (ISIS), Kurdish news outlet Rudaw reported on Thursday.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia on Tuesday said several civilians were killed when a Turkish military convoy opened fire on stone-throwing protesters in the town of Kobani in northeastern Syria.

The government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is helping the Islamic State (ISIS) rebuild a clandestine terror network inside Iraq that poses an ongoing security threat, according to Iraqi National Police Brigadier General Aref al-Zebari.

Iraq needs up to $100 billion to rebuild the city of Mosul alone following the devastation at the hands of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition against the jihadi group told reporters on Tuesday.

Residents in Kirkuk, Iraq, are protesting that they have run “out of water,” joining a chorus of protests in cities like Basra over Baghdad’s inability to provide basic government services, the Kurdish outlet Rudaw reported on Wednesday.

The Iraqi government has removed 47 Kurdish officials from their posts in Kirkuk, beginning with the regional governor, since reasserting control over the disputed region in October 2017. The use of “Kurdish phrases” was banned on Tuesday by the state-run North Gas Company, which operates in Kirkuk.

The Islamic State has begun exacerbating concerns about the availability of electricity in Iraq by targeting power plants and other key infrastructure for destruction. Baghdad announced on Sunday that unspecified “terrorist groups,” which observing media identify as the Islamic State, blew up a power plant in Kirkuk.

Kurdish residents of a town near northeastern Khanaqin, Iraq, evacuated their 12-home village following a wave of killings in the area carried out by the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), the Kurdish outlet Rudaw reported on Wednesday.

The Shiite-led Iraqi government is trying to force a demographic change in 500 Kurdish villages across northern Iraq’s disputed Kirkuk province, arming and resettling thousands of Shiite Arabs in the region, a Kurdish mayor reportedly claimed this week.

The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) killed the head of a village and three farmers in the most recent attacks in northern Iraq’s Kirkuk province, a testament to the menace posed by the jihadist organization six months after Baghdad declared final victory over it, Kurdistan 24 learned from an anonymous source this week.

The Iraqi security troops rekindled their relationship with the Kurdish Peshmerga forces this week as Iraq faces an Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) resurgence.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Iraq that his military would “do what it necessary” and attack Sinjar, site of the Islamic State’s Yazidi genocide, if Baghdad did not occupy the area and forcibly expel Kurdish forces there.

Members of Iraq’s Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF/PMU) confirmed on Monday that Islamic State terrorists killed “at least 27” of their fighters and kidnapped about two dozen more near Kirkuk, a city the PMF invaded and conquered late last year.

President Donald Trump emphasized the importance of eradicating the Islamic State from the face of the earth during his first State of the Union address Tuesday night, taking credit for the group losing nearly 100 percent of its territory in Iraq and Syria.

MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — The price Mosul’s residents paid in blood to see their city freed was between 9,000 and 11,000 dead, a civilian casualty rate nearly 10 times higher than what has been previously reported. The number killed in the 9-month battle to liberate the city from the Islamic State marauders has not been acknowledged by the U.S.-led coalition, the Iraqi government or the self-styled caliphate.

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 Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has once again demanded that the Kurdish armed forces, the Peshmerga, allow him to take over as their commander-in-chief or significantly diminish in size, apparently taking advantage of Kurdish President Masoud Barzani’s announcement that he would step down from his role on November 1.

Reports on Friday morning indicated that the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga had reached a ceasefire agreement with the Iraqi military, which began an invasion into Kurdish territory following September’s independence referendum in Kurdistan.

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.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq announced on Wednesday that it would be open to “freezing” the results of the September referendum asking Kurds whether they would support the creation of a sovereign KRG state.

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.

The Kurdish outlet Rudaw has published a video allegedly showing a member of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a coalition of mostly Shiite Iran-backed militias, hanging a photo of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei in the Kirkuk, Iraq, governorate’s building.

As President Barack Obama departed office, he assured us he was leaving behind a much safer world. He lied.

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.

Contents: Kurds flee Kirkuk after Iraq army defeats them in complete rout; Devastating defeat to Iraq in Kirkuk exposes major splits between Kurdish factions

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.

Contents: Mattis and Tillerson work to prevent Iraq vs Kurd military confrontation in Kirkuk; ISIS fighters permitted to leave Raqqa, Syria, with human shields; Syria demands ‘immediately’ pullout of Turkey’s forces from Idlib province

Iraq is on the precipice of civil war with tens of thousands of Kurdish Peshmerga forces preparing to face down the Iraqi Army and thousands of Iran-backed Shia militia advancing towards the northern Kurdish-controlled city of Kirkuk.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has deployed 6,000 Peshmerga troops to the disputed Kirkuk region in Iraq, as Shiite militias have reportedly approached the city under the auspices of the government in Baghdad, which has rejected the KRG’s independence referendum.

Contents: Hundreds of ISIS fighters surrender as Iraqi town of Hawija falls; Tensions grow between Turkmens and Kurds in Kirkuk

Yeni Safak, a Turkish newspaper known for its support of Islamist president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, accused the president of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of “support” for the Islamic State, despite the KRG’s pivotal role in fighting the jihadist group.