By Muhamed Hassan – Immersed Thinking: With the firing of mortars containing a chemical agent at the Iraqi town of Taza, south of the city of Kirkuk, and the death of a 3-year-old girl from the exposure, Daesh is undoubtedly escalating the war a few notches. The little girl died of respiratory complications and kidney…
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Category Archives: Iraq
Iraq: Establishing Security is the Biggest Challenge
By Muhamed Hassan – Immersed Thinking: Casualty figures in Iraq are a grim reminder of the government’s inability to protect its citizens. It is a failure that should be one of the principal factors behind any prospective state reforms. It should take precedence over any other domain because, without sustaining security, it would be far…
Turkish Army Suffers Heavy Losses in Kurdistan: Why Does Ankara Hide This?
By the Inside Syria Media Center: The Inside Syria Media Center reports from Iraq that the Turkish armed forces suffered heavy losses in a battle against the Kurds on 16 February 2016. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters downed a Turkish S-70 Black Hawk helicopter with heavy machine gun fire. The helicopter crashed in an…
Iraqi Kurds – What Goes Around Comes Around
By Muhamed Hassan – Immersed Thinking: At some stage in their recent history, Iraqi Kurds did very well in their overall socio-economic development, to the extent that they were the envy of their nearest neighbour: the Arabs. It was widely reported to be a regional economic powerhouse. Not now though. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)…
Is Mosul the Kurds’ Fight?
By Ata Hariri: As talk increases about the possibility off a 2016 offensive against Mosul, one key question has only been skirted around: Whether or not the Peshmerga will play a significant role in the actual attack on Mosul. While they have already played an important role, cutting off supply routes, driving back ISIS forces in…
Yazidi Translators’ Treacherous Escape from Shingal to Germany
By Dr. Amy L. Beam: Nayf’s Journey At daybreak, December 8, one of my Yazidi translators, Nayf, landed safely in the Greek Island of Chios in a rubber boat with his fiancée and her family of six. This was their second attempt after failing to make it to Kos Island from Bodrum last week. They…
Turkish Incursion Not for Liberating Mosul, But for Deepening Sectarian Conflicts & Further Damaging Turkish-Kurdish Peace Process
Open Letter: Mr. Martin Schulz, President, European Parliament Honorable President Schulz: In retrospect, since the early 1990s, Turkey has, occasionally, tried to cross the Turkish-Iraqi border, and enter the (KR) Kurdistan Region’s territory. First, they were against the newly established Kurdish administration in Kurdistan-Iraq, and now they are using the euphemism of liberating Mosul from Da’esh….
We Demand Immediate Withdrawal of Turkish Troops from Kurdistan
Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) Statement: Turkey is commiting another crime against Kurdish people and the people of the Middle East by entering Bashur/Iraqi Kurdistan and deploying unwanted troops in Mousel without any request or authorization from the Kurdistan parliament or Iraqi federal authority. The Turkish forces — comprising around one armored regiment with many tanks,…
Ignoring Self-Determination: The Imperialist Agenda and The Artificial Failed State of Iraq
By M.I. Augustine: From the time Cyrus the Great of Iran conquered Babylon in 539 B.C., all the way until British cartographers created something called “Iraq” in 1920, the area along the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers was never a united political entity. Due to one very important business interest, the British, after WWI, clumsily drew…
What Yezidi Sex Slaves Need: Money, Immigration, Revenge
By Dr. Amy L. Beam: MONEY Many people want to help the Yezidi people who were viciously attacked, slaughtered, and kidnapped last August in Shingal, Iraq, but they do not know who to trust with a donation. I have sat in the tents and one-room container homes of many Yezidi women who have escaped from…
Kurdistan’s Independence: From 4 to 1-State Solution – The Case for a United States of Kurdistan, USK
By Dr. M. Koohzad: PART 1 of 2 Introduction: The Kurdish political leadership in Erbil, the capital city of the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government, KRG, in Northern Iraq, was about to carry out a referendum to declare independence when Daesh, meaning Donkeys in Arabic, Jihadist terrorists – the so-called ISIS, showed up at their doorsteps….
$7.3 billion on KRG fuel imports could have been saved with affordable gas: Luay al-Khatteeb
Interview by Harem Karem: Luay al-Khatteeb is a nonresident fellow in the Brookings Doha Center and founder of Iraq Energy Institute, focusing on the geopolitics and political economy of the GCC and Iraq. His experiences in the private sector span more than 20 years, and he is a frequent commentator on issues related to energy…
Is the US Merely Agitating the Iraqi Government..?
By Yara Kamaran Ismael: In the warfare with the exceedingly forceful and well-equipped ISIS, the minorities in Iraq are demanding to be armed in order to safeguard their areas that were neglected by the official Iraqi military. Arming those forces through the Iraqi government is muddling the affair even more. The weapons and ammunition that…
Fall of Ramadi Should Be Last Chance for Iraq’s Abadi Government
By Arian Mufid: While the Iraqi government, together with KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government) and US-led coalition forces, have been busy developing a plan to re-capture Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, the news of the fall to IS of Ramadi, the third largest city, has shocked millions, for two main reasons. First, it has happened despite…
Peshmarga: The Only Effective Forces Fighting Daesh
By Arian Mufid: The USA and other Western powers are ‘backing the wrong horse’ by supporting the failed Iraqi army – instead they should be fully assisting and equipping the Peshmarga When Haider Abadi, the current Iraqi prime minister succeeded his notorious predecessor Nuri Maliki last September, two things were on everyone’s mind. First, how…
