Category Archives: Kurds

Latest betrayal of Kurds risks undermining defeat of Isis

Posted on by

It is unclear whether Turkey has the will or capacity to take over detention camps

In early 2015, as Islamic State trampled over armies of the Middle East and menaced the west, the US turned to the Kurds for help. It was a familiar call, having been repeated over the decades whenever Washington needed a friend in the region. The outcome has been similar too.

Four years on, the people who helped safeguard the global order have been abandoned by the US on the eve of a Turkish push into Kurdish lands across north-eastern Syria. Betrayal has been an enduring theme whenever the US and the Kurds have partnered, but never before as nakedly as this.

Continue reading...

US to let Turkish forces move into Syria, dumping Kurdish allies

Posted on by

White House reveals policy shift following conversation between Trump and Erdoğan

The White House has given the green light to a Turkish offensive into northern Syria, moving US forces out of the area in an abrupt foreign policy change that will in effect abandon the Kurds, Washington’s longtime military partner.

Kurdish forces have spearheaded the campaign against Islamic State in the region, but the policy swerve, after a phone conversation between Donald Trump and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Sunday, means Turkey would take custody of captured Isis fighters, the White House said.

Continue reading...

Art that survived Isis and Saddam regimes to go on display in London

Posted on by

Emotionally powerful exhibition of Iraqi Kurdish artists will include paintings peppered by bullets

Kurdish artworks that survived Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons as well as Islamic State’s cultural vandalism will go on display at a London gallery this week.

Iraqi Kurdish artists have made paintings and art installations from artefacts including Assyrian reliefs from 700 BC peppered by Isis bullet holes and the farewell “death” notes of a charity worker smuggling aid to Isis-controlled Mosul.

Continue reading...

Syria safe zone plan may just be wishful thinking

Posted on by

Lack of detail and strong opposition from Kurds means plan is unlikely to provide solution to region’s problems

The announcement by Turkey and the US that they will set up a safe zone in Kurdish-run north-eastern Syria allays fears of an imminent Turkish incursion into the country, but will strain Washington’s ties with a force that helped defeat Islamic State.

The announcement came as Ankara was finalising a troop buildup along its southern border, which it shares with Syrian Kurds. On Sunday, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, had threatened to invade within the next fortnight, creating a conundrum for Washington, which views both the Turks and the Kurds as allies and has increasingly struggled to keep them from conflict.

Continue reading...

Turkish diplomat shot dead in Iraqi city, officials say

Posted on by

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan vows to find those behind attack on restaurant in city of Erbil

A gunman has killed a senior Turkish diplomat and a civilian in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region, in a daytime attack inside a restaurant.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, vowed to find whoever was behind the “treacherous” attack. The dead man was identified by Iraqi media as the deputy consul for the region.

Continue reading...

Faces of war: Kurdistan’s armed struggle against Islamic State

Posted on by

Since March 2015, the photographer and author Joey Lawrence has had unprecedented access to Kurdish guerrilla organisations fighting Isis, embedding himself into the Iraq and Syrian civil war. His powerful portraits of the fighters give a different perspective to the conflict

We came from fire, and we will return to fire

The war against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has flooded our daily news with troubling statistics of massacres and mass migrations, yet there are faces and human stories at the heart of the conflict. Joey L wrote: “From Iraq, one crosses the Tigris River into war-torn Syria, and is catapulted into a worldview crafted by the guerrilla.”

Continue reading...

Sajid Javid condemned for ‘criminalising’ fighters against Isis

Posted on by
Families of those killed say the home secretary must distinguish between jihadists and others fighting with Kurdish forces

More than 40 international volunteers – a third of them British – who fought in Syria against the Islamic State terror group have written to the home secretary, Sajid Javid, to condemn his plans to prosecute UK citizens who remain in the country.

Four British families whose sons or daughters were killed fighting Isis have also signed the letter, raising concerns that Javid is “criminalising” those who risked their lives supporting the US-led coalition which two months ago defeated the IS caliphate.

Continue reading...

Refugee jailed for smuggling injured niece into UK reunited with family

Posted on by

Home Office releases Najat Ibrahim Ismail, an Iraqi Kurd who faced deportation three times

A man who brought his baby niece to the UK from a French refugee camp after she sustained serious burns has been released from detention and reunited with his family.

Najat Ibrahim Ismail, 32, an Iraqi Kurd, faced three attempts by the Home Office to put him on a plane to Iraq in recent weeks. He is married to a British woman, Emma Ismail, and has three young British children, including a 10-year-old son who has autism.

Continue reading...

Erdoğan’s grip on Turkey slips as opposition makes election gains

Posted on by

Local elections viewed as referendum on president’s handling of economic crisis

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s grip on Turkey has been challenged by a resurgent opposition in local elections, with his ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) losing control of Ankara and on track to lose Istanbul, according to unofficial local election results.

Voting in 30 cities, 51 municipal capitals and 922 districts across the country on Sunday has been viewed widely as a referendum on the president’s handling of Turkey’s economic crisis as the nation of 81 million people faces a recession for the first time since Erdoğan entered office 16 years ago.

Continue reading...

Isis defeated, US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces announce

Posted on by

Kurdish-led group says last of militants cleared from stronghold of Baghuz

After almost five years, the battle to dismantle Islamic State’s brutal “caliphate” has ended with an announcement from US-backed forces that the militants have been driven out of their last stronghold of Baghuz.

Isis had held out for months against the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the small oasis town on the Euphrates river, clinging on to an area of land less than 700 sq metres wide despite fierce coalition bombing. But on Saturday an SDF spokesperson, Mustafa Bali, tweeted that the town had been liberated.

Continue reading...

Syrian Kurdish leader calls for international force to protect Kurds

Posted on by

Ilham Ahmed says Kurds want observers on the border to ensure Turkey does not attack

The leader of the Syrian Kurds has called for a small international observer force to be stationed on the Turkey-Syria border to protect Kurds from what she says is the threat of crimes against humanity committed by Turkish forces.

Ilham Ahmed is co-chair of the Syrian Democratic Council – the political arm of the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which have been responsible for liberating much of north-eastern Syria from Islamic State.

Continue reading...

True aims of the Syrian Democratic Forces | Letters

Posted on by
Their military aim is the defeat of Islamic State and their political goal is secular democracy and autonomy in northern Syria, not the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, writes Rosa Gilbert of the Kurdistan Solidarity Campaign

The Syrian Democratic Forces, the multi-ethnic secular forces in northern Syria primarily made up of the Kurdish YPG as well as other local Assyrian, Arab and Turkmen groups, have never sought the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad as your article suggests (British hostage Cantlie, seized by Isis in 2012, is alive, says Home Office, 6 February). Their military aim is the defeat of Islamic State and their political goal is secular democracy and autonomy in northern Syria as seen by the multi-ethnic, feminist, democratic socialist, commune-based society they have been constructing in the areas they have liberated from Isis. There have been no major battles with regime forces and in fact they have worked with the Syrian Arab Army in the Kurdish Aleppo district of Sheikh Maqsood, which was liberated from al-Nusra jihadists in 2016.
Rosa Gilbert
Co-secretary, Kurdistan Solidarity Campaign

• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com

Continue reading...

America’s Kurdish allies risk being wiped out – by Nato | David Graeber

Posted on by

Turkey is seen as the Kurds’ mortal enemy but it uses German tanks and British helicopters: this is an international outrage

Remember those plucky Kurdish forces who so heroically defended the Syrian city of Kobane from Isis? They risk being wiped out by Nato.

The autonomous Kurdish region of Rojava in Northeast Syria, which includes Kobane, faces invasion. A Nato army is amassing on the border, marshaling all the overwhelming firepower and high-tech equipment that only the most advanced military forces can deploy. The commander in chief of those forces says he wants to return Rojava to its “rightful owners” who, he believes, are Arabs, not Kurds.

Continue reading...

US-Kurdish patrol attacked in Syria as Erdoğan offers to step in

Posted on by

Turkish president tells Donald Trump he is ready to send troops into US-overseen areas

The threat of a growing security vacuum in Syria as a result of Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw US troops has been underlined by an attack on a joint US-Kurdish patrol, which reportedly killed five people and injured at least two American soldiers.

The attack on Monday, in which a suicide bomber drove a car into a checkpoint, emphasised the vulnerability of American troops since the US president declared he was withdrawing 2,000 soldiers from northern Syria on the grounds that Islamic State has been defeated.

Continue reading...

Turkey will not be intimidated by Trump, says foreign minister

Posted on by

Ankara hits back after Trump threatened to ‘economically devastate’ it over Syria

Turkey’s foreign minister has hit back at Donald Trump over his threat to economically devastate the country if it follows through on a planned operation against Kurdish forces in northern Syria, saying Ankara will not be intimidated by its Nato ally.

“We have said repeatedly we are not scared of and will not be intimidated by any threats,” said Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu in televised remarks from Ankara on Monday, before rebuking the US president for using Twitter for sensitive diplomatic matters.

Continue reading...

Bolton: US troops will not leave Syria till Isis beaten and Kurds protected

Posted on by

Adviser indicates long stay for troops while president claims he never said withdrawal would be quick

US troops will not leave north-eastern Syria until Islamic State militants are defeated and US-allied Kurdish fighters protected, national security adviser John Bolton said on Sunday, signaling a pause to a withdrawal abruptly announced last month and initially expected to be completed within weeks. Achieving such conditions will likely take months or even years.

Related: Trump: US has killed al-Qaida militant tied to USS Cole bombing

Continue reading...