Category Archives: Iraq

The Army of the Men of the Naqshbandi Order, the Shadow of the Ba’ath Party, and an ambiguous figure in Iraq

By Arian Mufid: The Naqshbandi Army, more commonly known in Arabic as Jaysh Rijal al-Tariq al-Naqshbandi (JRTN), is an Iraqi organisation formed under the influence of Baathist and Islamist political ideals with the main goal of resisting the American-led coalition in Iraq. The group’s insurgency movement formed in late 2006 in areas that were traditionally…

Iraqi Journalists and Political Activists in Deadly Peril

KT News: On Wednesday 12th May, Salah Hassan, the prominent TV broadcaster and journalist from the city of Diwanya in the south of Iraq was shot in the head in front of his home. Due to his critical condition, he was transferred to hospital in Baghdad. Salah Hassan’s brother Ahmed told a local news agency that…

Obituary: Professor Kamal Mazhar Ahmed

By Arian Mufid: Professor Kamal Mazhar Ahmed, born on the 14th of February 1937 in the town of Akjalar, which belongs to the city of Kirkuk He was born to a father who was a civil servant and born on Valentine’s day. This is the probable reason for his lifelong love and passion for his…

The Endless Cycles of Betrayals and Killings of the Kurds

By Dr. M. Koohzad: After the defeat of the Turkish Ottoman Empire in WWI (1914 – 1918), European victors dissected the world’s most potent Muslim Empire. In the middle of the Great War, the Allies predicted the result of the conflict and planned to take over by signing the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement. The two, a…

Quo Vadis Iraq?

By Harem Karem: Last year’s wave of protests against corruption and foreign interference, across central and southern Iraq, marked a critical juncture in the country’s post-war trajectory; unprecedented in scale and strength, the protesters were resolute in pursuit of lasting change. Undeterred by the violent crackdown from state and non-state forces that resulted in hundreds…

The World Should Not Underestimate the People’s Uprising in Iraq

By Arian Mufid: When the USA invaded Iraq they didn’t realise they were going to build a proxy state of Iran. Iraq has become a failed state through the last two decades of rule by different Islamic parties, all driven primarily by Iranian interests. The country of Iraq has been devastated and its resources wasted…

The Region of Iran and Iraq Cannot Afford Another War

By Arian Mufid: When the American administration made a political decision to invade Iraq militarily, they never fully calculated the consequences and how bloody that war would be. The USA acted largely on the advice of the Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi who helped imbue their invasion plans with false optimism as to medium and…

Iran: 40 Years Under a Regime of Destruction

By Arian Mufid: Iran’s mullah’s and their despotic regime are celebrating forty years in power. When the Shah of Iran left Iran in 1978 and handed over to Shahpoor Bhaktiar, it was a final concession made to stop Iran’s destruction. Ayatollah Khomeini was still in France when the world’s most powerful intelligence services decided to…

Stop the Turkish Invasion of South Kurdistan (Iraqi Kurdistan)

Kurdistan National Kongress (KNK) Statement: The Kurds in Iraq and Syria have been engaged in an epic battle against the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria, an organisation that stands in opposition not only to the Kurds, but also to the region as a whole, in its attempts to create a Salafist system. This…

General Najim al-Jubouri on Ezidi Disaster and Return to Shingal

By Amy L Beam: 42-minute Interview with Amy L Beam, May 20, 2018, Mosul, Iraq. (Interview conducted in English with no translation to Arabic. Sorry for poor sound quality.) Amy (A): General Najim, can you explain your position and responsibilities? Najim (N): I am Major General, Commander of Nineveh province. A: What responsibilities does that…

The Future of Iraq

By Payraw Anwar: Introduction The nuclear deal between Iran and P5+1 (the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — the United states, United Kingdom, Russia, France, and China — plus Germany) and the European Union was signed in the summer of 2015. On 8 May 2018 Donald Trump the president of the United…

The Earthquake in Kurdistan is Devastating!

By Rebwar Rashed: The earthquake on Sunday evening, 11 November, which struck a region between Iraq and Iran, is strictly a Kurdish region. In Iraq, this Kurdish area has always been subjected to extermination by the Iraqi governments, for instance during the Anfal of Saddam Hussein at least 182,000 Kurdish civilians were buried alive. In…

External Forces Against A Kurdish Referendum

By Dr Jan Best de Vries: After World War 1 the present borders of Iraq and Syria were drawn by respectively England and France on the basis of the presence of oil fields in these areas, their former mandates after destruction of the vilayets under Ottoman rule. So neither these present western powers nor the …

Beyond Referendum

By Dr. Rashid Karadaghi: Few issues have split the Kurdish house like the proposed referendum, which is planned for late September of this year in South Kurdistan. This article is not about endorsing or opposing the referendum because a referendum is the most basic right of any oppressed nation like the Kurds. Thus, no Kurd,…

Kurdish History Is Waiting To Be Made

By Arian Mufid: If it wasn’t for Churchill’s UK election defeat in 1945, Indian independence would not have been realised two years later. As it was, at midnight on 14-15 August 1947, India gained its freedom and “the Union Jack, emblazoned with the Star of India, began its final journey down the flagstaff”*. If it…