Tag: ISIL

  • A massacre against the Türkmen by this terrorist organization ISIL in Emirli is imminent

    A massacre against the Türkmen by this terrorist organization ISIL in Emirli is imminent

    A massacre against the Türkmen by this terrorist organization ISIL in Emirli is imminent   

    taha

    Sadly the Kurdish policy/regime toward the Türkmen people is no different from that of the Arabisation policy that was carried out against the Türkmen during Saddam Hussein’s reign.

    Following the fall of Saddam Hussein’s government in 2003 and the control of Northern Iraq by the Kurdish Regional Government, the Iraqi Türkmen’s situation has deteriorated dramatically. At that time the Türkmen expected to see justice, equality and human rights but tragically the reverse has been happening. The lands of the Türkmen people have been confiscated and at times destroyed; many Türkmen have been kidnapped, arrested and assassinated. The Türkmen people have been subjected to tremendous pressure from the Kurdish party militias, to disregard their Türkmen identity and they are been forced to blend Kurdish society.

    The current disregard of the Türkmen people’s situation is unacceptable in Türkmeneli. The Türkmen people are again been subjected to a most brutal campaign by a terrorist Islamic State in Iraq, the Levant (ISIL) militants, thousands of Türkmen were forced to flee the Türkmen District of Telafer, when jihadists overran the area.

    The Türkmen people in the sub-district of Taze Khormatu, Tuz Khormatu and specifically the sub_district of Emirli has been under siege by the terrorist organization ISIL for the last two months. Their water, electricity, medical and food supply has been cut off and they have been living in horrific conditions. A massacre against the Türkmen by this terrorist organization ISIL in Emirli is imminent and tragically avoidable.

    When thousands of the Yazidis religious minority were forced to flee Sinjar as the jihadists overran their area, this prompted an international aid operation and helped to trigger the US air strikes.

    Türkmens are questioning why Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, and the Czech Republic do not show this same solidarity/urgency towards the Iraqi Türkmen people.  As over 100,000 Türkmen people have sought refuge as thousands of Türkmen are executed by the terrorist Islamic State (IS) militants.

    Türkmen are also questioning why Germany, France, the Czech Republic, Italy, Canada, and Britain are not showing the same solidarity toward the Iraqi Türkmen in Emirli, who have been under siege for the past two months? Türkmens believe that the humanitarian aid should be distributed equally and fairly to all the Iraqi people who are fleeing Islamic militants in Northern Iraq.

    The Türkmen and Christian people are left defenceless, after the occupation of the city of Mosul by the terrorist Islamic State militants and the retreat of the Iraqi army from Mosul and Kerkuk. The Kurdish armed forces, instead of fighting and stopping the State militants from occupying Türkmen villages around the city of Kerkuk, have used the sectarian chaos in Iraq to expand their autonomous territory to include Kerkuk.

    Kerkuk sits on vast oil deposits, that could make the Kurdish region an independent state that many dream of in Iraq’s mountainous north and beyond, more viable. Türkmen question why Germany, France, the Czech Republic, Italy, Canada, and Britain did not stop the Kurdish Peshmerga from occupying the Türkmen city of Kerkuk without question their objective?

    While the Islamic State militants have swept across northern Iraq, pushing back Kurdish regional forces, threatening the Kurdish regional Capital of Erbil and driving tens of thousands of Christians and members of the Yazidis religious minority from their homes, Germany, France, Czechs Republic and Britain have shown great empathy towards the Kurdish people.

    Funnelling arms to the Kurdish Peshmerga forces by Britain, the United States and some European countries can start to change the dynamics in the region. The U.S. and EU’s provision of arms support for the Kurds is a good and positive step against the terrorist organization ISIL. However, this help should not only be given to the Kurdish people, the Türkmen people should also be given arms support. If the support is only limited to the Kurds, it could be an indication that there are other plans/incentives behind the decision of establishing a Kurdish state.

    The U.S. and EU’s stance on supporting the Kurds could be motivated by plans to divide Iraq into three parts that consist of a Shiite region in the south, a strengthened Kurdish region in the north and a Sunni region in the central Iraq.  This action would be totally rejected by the Türkmen people and civil war will be imminent if this plan is implemented by the U.S. and EU’s countries. In the view of many Türkmen, an independent Kurdish state would further destabilize the region and create new tensions, possibly also within the states neighbouring Iraq.

    In the view of many Türkmen, ignoring the plight of the Türkmen could be seen to be part of a plan for creating a special region for Christians and Yazidis on the Nineveh plane. The Türkmen would be the biggest losers from the implementation of such a plan. The Türkmen have suffered a lot during and after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime. Iraqi Türkmen, the third largest ethnic group affected by the violence in Iraq, should also be equally armed by Britain to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.

    The Türkmen people totally disapprove of sending weapons only to the Kurdish Peshmerga as these weapons could later be used by the Kurdish Peshmerga, to suppress the other ethnic groups in Northern Iraq. The Türkmen, Christian and Yazidis were betrayed by the Kurdish Peshmerga when they retreated from the Türkmen district of Telafer and sub- district of Beshir, Kusteppa, Biravchi, Makhmur and Sinjar.

    The Kurdish Peshmerga left the Türkmen, Christian and Yazidis under the mercy of the terrorist organization ISIL. The Kurdish Peshmerga is fighting to protect their own state, not for the Iraqi people as is believed. The Türkmen are worried about the formation of an independent Kurdish state, as this would risk further destabilizing the region.

    The Türkmen people of Iraq are extremely anxious to see the US and the West take action against the terrorist organization ISIL. However, the US, England, France, Italy, Canada, and Germany should show the same equality and empathy towards the Türkmen people. Iraqi Türkmen people are asking for arms/help/support from the West, asking for equal treatment to fight the terrorist organization ISIL.

    Mofak Salman Kerkuklu

    Türkmen Liberation Front

  • That’s a Black Flag Associated With Islamic Terror Groups — and Just Guess Where Police Confirmed the Picture Was Taken

    That’s a Black Flag Associated With Islamic Terror Groups — and Just Guess Where Police Confirmed the Picture Was Taken

    Jason Howerton

    People across the U.S. expressed outrage on social media after a flag associated with radical Islamic terror groups was found flying outside a Garwood, New Jersey, home. The militant flag, a symbol routinely used by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, has since been taken down “voluntarily,” according to a police spokesperson.

    Garwood Police Chief Bruce D. Underhill confirmed in an email to the Washington Free Beacon that his officers are “aware of the situation” and “have taken the appropriate steps.” However, he denied that police “ordered” the resident to take down the flag.

    (Twitter/Marc Leibowitz)
    (Twitter/Marc Leibowitz)

    “At this time, the flag in question has been voluntarily taken down. No further comments,” Underhill added.

    The flag garnered national attention after a Twitter user posted a photo of the ISIS-associated flag outside the home as well as the resident’s address.

    A Turkish flag remains displayed outside the home, but the black militant flag has been replaced with a new flag “that appears to resemble the blue-and-white-stripped flag of Greece,” according to the Free Beacon.

    The Islamic militants of ISIS, or ISIL, have been advancing across northern Iraq, leaving a bloody trail in its wake. The radicals ultimately hope to overthrow the Iraqi government, bringing them one step closer to establishing an Islamic caliphate.

    ISIS supporters in Jordan waved black flags and chanted: “The caliphate is coming to Jordan.” (Image source: YouTube)
    ISIS supporters in Jordan waved black flags and chanted: “The caliphate is coming to Jordan.” (Image source: YouTube)

    Since June, Iraq has been facing an onslaught by the Islamic State group and allied Sunni militants across much of the country’s north and west. In recent weeks, the crisis has worsened as the militant fighters swept over new towns in the north, displacing members of the minority Christian and Yazidi religious communities, and threatening the neighboring Iraqi Kurdish autonomy zone.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    www.theblaze.com,

  • Turkey’s Ties With ISIL Continue to Arouse Suspicions

    Turkey’s Ties With ISIL Continue to Arouse Suspicions

    Masked people in guerrilla outfits hold up a poster of of jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan as they demonstrate during the Nowruz celebrations in southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir, Turkey, March 21, 2014.   Dorian Jones

    June 27, 2014 6:05 PM DIYARBAKIR, TURKEY —Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militants continue to score victories across Iraq. For neighbor Turkey, there is growing concern over ISIL’s growing power, particularly in its predominantly Kurdish southeast, which borders Iraq and Syria.

    In Diyarbakir, as in the rest of Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast, many Kurds are religious.

    That, analysts say, and decades of economic underdevelopment and conflict, with the Kurds fighting for minority rights, have helped make the region a fertile recruiting ground for organizations like ISIL.

    Young Kurds

    Already more than dozen young Kurds from Turkey have died fighting for ISIL in neighboring Iraqi and Syria, according to Muammer Akar, a Diyarbakir city counselor and prominent member of Turkey’s ruling AK Party.

    Besides local factors, the region – like the rest of the Middle East – is paying the price for years of religious rivalry between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shi’ite Iran, he said, adding that ISIL is attracting a growing number of recruits.

    Saudi Arabia has spent a significant amount of money here developing a radical form of Sunni Islam called Wahhabism to counter Iran’s influence. Over the years, many Kurdish youths were attracted and have become increasingly radical and closer to committing violence.

    Akar claims funerals in the region for ISIL militants draw large numbers and have become a powerful recruiting tool for the Islamic group.

    But critics are accusing the ruling AK Party, which has its roots in Islam, of turning a blind eye to ISIL activities on Turkey’s border with Syria because of the party’s opposition to the Syrian regime, and because ISIL is fighting Syrian Kurds, who have declared a secular autonomous state on Turkey’s border.

    Ankara fears its own restive Kurdish population could make similar demands for autonomy. It has accused the Syrian Kurdish leadership of links to the PKK, which has been fighting the Turkish state for minority rights for decades.

    Two hours drive from Diyarbakir, in the town of Cizre, located near the Tukrish, Syrian and Iraqi borders, Deputy Mayor Kadir Konur accuses the ruling party of going beyond tacit support of ISIL.

    He said ISIL’s resources come from Turkey, citing what he said are numerous instances of trucks leaving Turkey with arms for groups like ISIL.

    Many people on Cizre’s streets appear to share such concerns, especially for the plight of Syrian Kurds just across the border.

    “We are very pessimistic because of ISIL and all the massacres they’ve done in Syrian Kurdistan, he said. The killing of women and children. It is very clear that many ISIL fighters cross the border from Turkey and the AK Party allows this,” said a man on the street interviewed by VOA.

    Escalating charges

    Suspicions of Turkish government involvement with ISIL have been heightened by an anonymously released video showing Turkish soldiers intercepting two Turkish trucks allegedly carrying Syria-bound weapons. The soldiers manhandle Turkish intelligence officers who are in cars escorting the trucks. According to prosecutors, the arms were being sent to radical Islamic groups fighting in Syria.

    The government claims the trucks were only carrying aid and strongly denied allegations of gun-running, pointing out that it has designated ISIL a terrorist group. But the prosecutors and soldiers investigating the trucks have now been charged with spying.

    Diyarbakir city counselor and AK Party member Muammer Akar said his own party may not be aware of the dangers Turkey is facing.

    “Ankara doesn’t see the danger, as they are dealing with so many other issues, but we do,” said Akar. “It’s only a matter of time before ISIL targets Turkey; since they see us as a country of heretics, they will attack our big western cities.”

    ISIL videos aimed at Turkish and Kurdish youths continue to appear on the Internet, calling them to join the jihad. Observers are increasingly asking if — or when — the war to create an Islamic state will come to Turkey.

  • Iraqi government asks U.S. to bomb Islamist fighters as 30,000 troops flee their posts

    Iraqi government asks U.S. to bomb Islamist fighters as 30,000 troops flee their posts

    Iraqi government asks U.S. to bomb Islamist fighters as 30,000 troops flee their posts

    McClatchy Foreign StaffJune 11, 2014 Updated 6 hours ago

     — Militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria on Wednesday pushed their offensive south into Iraq’s Sunni Muslim heartland, capturing key crossroad towns on the highway to the capital, Baghdad, andtaking control of a critical oil refinery.

    The speedy advance of Islamic State fighters triggered recriminations in Baghdad, where Iraqi officials sought assistance from the United States to counter the advance.

    A senior Iraqi official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive politics of the matter, said Baghdad even had asked U.S. officials to consider undertaking air strikes to rout the fighters.

    So far, the official said, the Americans appeared reluctant to take that step. “They have not committed yet,” he said, adding that it “doesn’t look like” they will, either.

    Word of the request for armed American intervention came as insurgents captured the strategic city of Tikrit, took control of a critical oil refinery and power plant in the town of Baiji and pushed into the mixed Kurdish-Arab city of Kirkuk and the flashpoint city of Samara, just 70 miles north of Baghdad.

    In a move that underlined the Islamic State’s ambitions, social media accounts associated with the group triumphantly announced the end of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the demarcation of modern Middle East borders by France and Great Britain after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I. The group released credible but unconfirmed footage of heavy equipment adorned with the black flag of the Islamic State destroying fences and earthen berms along the Syrian border.

    In Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein, who Iraq’s current government executed in 2006, the Islamic State was receiving heavy support from local anti-government tribes under an insurgent coalition called the General Military Council. Witnesses inside Tikrit said the rebels had taken control of much of the city, which was being adorned with posters of Saddam.

    Dr. Issa Ayal, a local journalism professor, said the scene in Tikrit, the capital of Salahuddin province, was a near repeat of ISIS’ capture late Monday of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, when government soldiers and police shed their uniforms and their weapons and fled their posts ahead of the ISIS attackers.

    “They had civilian clothes and left their posts,” he said of Iraqi soldiers in Tikrit.

    The governor’s office in Tikrit fell about 11 a.m., he said. “Many members of Tikrit’s tribes loyal to the late President Saddam joined the fighters and I can see and hear them chanting Tikriti songs and chants near the governor’s office,” he said.

    He said that ISIS gunmen had halted the broadcast of a Salahuddin satellite TV channel but did not harm journalists at the station and allowed them to leave safely.

    In Baiji, which also lies in Salahuddin province, Islamic State fighters took control of the town and were poised to add one of Iraq’s most important oil refineries and pumping facilities to the substantial list of economic infrastructure captured in the past 48 hours. Security forces abandoned the facility, which is connected to a large electrical power plant, and Islamic State fighters had taken control of the area, though it remained unclear if they had entered the plant itself. Ben Lando, editor of Iraq Oil Report, a trade publication based in Baghdad, said the Iraqi government would likely shut down the pipeline feeding the facility if ISIS did take actual control.

    Embattled Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki took to state airwaves to offer weapons to any civilians willing to fight against the quickly encroaching Islamic State, a call to arms that was aimed primarily at the Shiite Muslim militias that successfully battled Sunni groups for control of Baghdad in a sectarian war from 2006 to 2008. But how many would respond was not clear, and a key former militia leader, cleric Muktada al Sadr, suggested he would limit his response to protecting the Imam Ali Shrine in the holy city of Najaf, which is about 100 miles south of Baghdad and 200 miles south of the scene of Wednesday’s fighting.

    Meanwhile, a number of Sunni Muslim tribes in the provinces of Anbar, Nineveh and Salahuddin appeared to be joining the Islamist advance after years of tensions with the Shiite government in Baghdad.

    How the U.S. would respond to the Iraqi request for bombing strikes, first reported by The New York Times, was not immediately clear. Pentagon spokesman Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby on Tuesday had gone out of his way seemingly to discourage speculation of direct U.S. involvement. “This is for the Iraqi security forces and the Iraqi government to deal with,” he said.

    That response came weeks, however, after Maliki had first asked the United States for help, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

    A senior U.S. Defense Department official, confirming the report, said that Maliki first made the request around the time of his visit to Washington last October. The official described the administration’s response as cold and said Maliki had asked that the request be kept secret so that it would not appear that he was inviting the United States to return to Iraq.

    While rejecting the idea of airstrikes, the Obama administration did agree to speed up delivery of F16 fighter jets and Hellfire missiles. But the jets are not expected to arrive until September, leaving Iraq with a limited ability to attack insurgent positions from the air.

    There were reports Wednesday from the rebel-affiliated Local Coordinating Committee in Syria’s Deir el Zour province, however, that Syrian government aircraft had bombed an ISIS convoy that was moving toward Iraq. It could not be learned if the strike was at the request of the Iraqi government, which has supported Syrian President Bashar Assad in his efforts to remain in power.

     

     

    In northern Iraq, Islamic State fighters appeared to be avoiding confronting the peshmerga militia loyal to the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government, which had dispatched troops from the Kurdish capital of Irbil to impose a security cordon around Kurdish areas and to reinforce peshmerga troops in the Kurdish eastern half of Mosul and further south in the Kurdish sections of the mixed city of Kirkuk. But Islamic State fighters and local Sunni tribesmen were battling for control of Arab districts.

    “We’ve fully mobilized, obviously,” said Sabaa al Barzani, a Kurdistan Regional Government security official in Irbil. “We’re sending peshmerga fighters to Mosul and Kirkuk and using them to form a protective circle around Irbil.”

    Barzani said the stream of refugees that began fleeing Mosul for Irbil had become a torrent on Wednesday.

    “We’re counting 20 cars a minute right now, and they’ve been coming all day,” he said.

     

    The International Rescue Committee estimated that at least 500,000 people had fled fighting in Mosul by Wednesday afternoon, leaving a humanitarian crisis in the making as Iraq is already struggling to house 200,000 refugees from the fighting in neighboring Syria.

     

    Reports that the peshmerga were attempting to recapture Mosul’s international airport, which fell Tuesday to the Islamic State, could not be confirmed. But the site represents a major strategic asset that would allow the Iraqi army to send troops and establish supply lines for any attempt to retake the city.

    Barzani would not comment on specifics but said that “security operations on several fronts are planned or ongoing.” A security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, did confirm that Kurdish units had retaken the Rabia border crossing with Syria earlier in the day.

    ISIS stormed the Turkish consulate in Mosul at midday Wednesday and captured the consul-general, Ozturk Yilmas, a career diplomat, and 48 other staff members, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in Ankara. On Tuesday it arrested 31 Turkish truck drivers as they were delivering diesel fuel to a depot in Mosul.

    With 80 people being held, Turkey called for an emergency meeting of the NATO council. But it wasn’t clear what the government in Ankara would undertake as a response, or what support it would seek from its NATO allies. Reports in the Turkish media said ISIS had demanded a $5 million ransom for the release of the drivers. The fate of the diplomats was also unclear. A Twitter account thought to be linked to ISIS stated that the “Turks are not kidnapped. They are only taken to a safe location and until the investigation procedures are completed.”

     

    It was still unclear just how much U.S.-provided military equipment had been captured in the seizure of Mosul, but the booty no doubt totaled tons of heavy weapons. The Islamic State’s treasury also was no doubt swollen by the hundreds of millions of dollars the group’s fighters seized from government offices and banks in Mosul.

    In Washington, Lukman Faily, the Iraqi ambassador to the United States, said the Iraqi government had yet to determine how much war materiel the insurgents had captured. But he provided fresh insight into the depth of the unfolding debacle, saying that around 30,000 Iraqi forces had abandoned their posts in the ISIS onslaught. “Disappointing is an understatement,” he said.

    He also pleaded for U.S. support, saying that the Islamic State had proved to be a formidable foe. “They have been creative, aggressive, thinking outside the box, with advanced weapons and financial support,” he said. “This is not a local insurgency.”

    HANNAH ALLAM AND NANCY A. YOUSSEF IN WASHINGTON, ROY GUTMAN AND SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT MOUSAB ALHAMADEE IN ISTANBUL AND SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT MOHAMMED AL DULAIMY IN COLUMBIA, S.C., CONTRIBUTED.

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