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A total of 81 mass graves of Yazidis have been found in Sinjar district in northern Iraq since 2014, according to a Kurdish official on Thursday, Anadolu News Agency reports.

Baravan Hamdi, Deputy Minister of the Martyrs in the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), said these graves were dug by the Daesh terrorist group.

"These graves are acts of ethnic cleansing," he told Anadolu Agency.

The KRG Deputy Minister said two mass graves were found two weeks ago in the Hardan village in Sinjar, and several bodies were exhumed and sent to Baghdad for DNA analysis and identification.

The Sinjar district was captured by the Daesh terrorist group in 2014 and, in 2015, the PKK terror organisation managed to establish a foothold in the area.

According to Iraqi figures, the Daesh group killed 1,293 Yazidis and kidnapped 6,417, of whom 3,530 had managed to flee from the group's grip.

READ: Daesh detention centres are ticking time bombs in Iraq

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81 mass graves of Yazidis found in Iraq's Sinjar since 2014: Official - Middle East Monitor

Investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald said the same people who pushed the U.S. into war with Iraq and Afghanistan for Republicans are now back to do the same for the Democrats with a war against Russia. Greenwald told FOX News' Laura Ingraham on Thursday that people should be cautious when the two parties are in lockstep when it comes to war because that means there was very little debate and people were coerced.

Greenwald also said Russiagate and the hatred and distrust for Russia that was created is one of the reasons why the Russia-Ukraine conflict could not be solved diplomatically.

"This is journalism in 2022," Greenwald said. "There are no standards, there are no ethics. A lot of their readers who they write for want them to lie to them or about their enemies as long as it advances the cause."

"I think the more interesting question is the fact that you pointed out to, there is very little debate over something this cataclysmic potentially in the U.S. Congress," he said. "I haven't seen the two parties united in lockstep to this extent since the days after 9/11. I think that lockstep unity produced a lot of bad outcomes. It's generally a bad thing."

"We should be experiencing discomfort whenever the two parties are in complete unity because it signifies not rational thought that has led to a common consensus, but a kind of moral coercion that politicians sense and feel like they need to embrace a narrative about questioning it because as you know very well and I do too, any questioning of the current consensus in Washington immediately subjects you to claims you're a Russian agent, and obviously if you're an elected leader or anyone you don't want that said about you. It's working to prevent the questioning that we need, the debate we need to," Greenwald said.

"The amazing thing is it's the same people, it's David Frum and Nicolle Wallace and Matthew Dowd and Bill Kristol and Max Boot," Greenwald said. "All these neocons back then who were doing this and made themselves the enemy of the country. They ended up in complete disrepute by the end of the second Bush-Cheney term, are now back in the saddle doing it on behalf of Democrats on their cable networks, on their newspapers' op-ed pages. And it's like people have no historical memory, they cheer for these people because they rehabilitated themselves by opposing Trump and that's all they know."

GLENN GREENWALD: It's not just the same tactics, the same rhetorical tactics. You know back then, the idea was if you question the War on Terror, if you question the neocons' invasion of Iraq, if you questioned anything the neocons wanted to do, it meant your patriotism was impugned. It meant you were on the other side, you were an ally of the terrorist, all that rhetoric. And that's the same rhetoric now.

The amazing thing is it's the same people -- it's David Frum and Nicolle Wallace and Matthew Dowd and Bill Kristol and Max Boot. All these neocons back then who were doing this and made themselves the enemy of the country. They ended up in complete disrepute by the end of the second Bush-Cheney term -- are now back in the saddle doing it on behalf of Democrats on their cable networks, on their newspapers' op-ed pages. And its' like people have no historical memory, they cheer for these people because they rehabilitated themselves by opposing Trump and that's all they know.

It's like the neocons have become the most influential force again in American foreign policy as though Iraq and the excesses of the War on Terror never happened.

LAURA INGRAHAM: Yeah, some of us evolved.

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Greenwald: The Same Neocons That Pushed Iraq War Are Now Doing It On Behalf Of Democrats And They Are Being Cheered - RealClearPolitics

BACKGROUND & CONTEXT

Thi-Qar, one of the southernmost governorates of Iraq along the Euphrates basin, shares an emerging environmental degradation problem with the rest of governorates in the south which has affected peoples immediate and long-term socio-economic prospects. As of recently, this has coupled with Iraq-wide governance and financial challenges. This has led to instability in the south of Iraq, especially Thi-Qar, making this area a particular hotspot for fragility as compared to the rest of the country, with structural issues ranging from high levels of poverty, low levels of human capital, and lack of infrastructure development. In the governorate capital, Nasiriyah, as in other neighbouring urban areas such as Basra or Al-Amarah, people have protested in large scale since 2015 against their deteriorating living conditions, in a period where the government and the international community were focused on the ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) conflict ravaging Iraqs north. The initial months of the protests in Nassiriya were particularly intense with clashes in the streets.

As of 2021, Thi-Qar remains the main stronghold of the protests in Iraq, concentrated in Nasiriyah. Despite the different attempts from security forces and other armed groups to break the protests, often with harsh actions leaving several casualties many residents continue protesting and asking for their demands to be implemented.In the past two years the protests in Nasiriyah have led to the change of multiple police chiefs and governors, but with no manifest improvement of the structural issues people suffer from. The most recent attempt to appease protests has been to appoint a new governor for Thi-Qar who was one of five candidates that was presented by the protestors to the Iraqi government.

To better understand social fragility and challenges to resilience in Thi-Qar, focus must be placed on what makes violence spiral up and become increasingly protracted. Rural areas in Thi-Qar, in particular, are narrowly connected to fragility present in general in the governorate, although it may manifest differently. Different drivers were found through interviewing community members and institutional actors alike, ranging from the inability to pursue traditional rural livelihoods, absence of institutional responsiveness, bleak outlooks and lack of agency of youth, as well as social norms that are increasingly unable to foster change and respond to challenges peacefully .

Resilience-building in Thi-Qar, thus, faces entrenched issues that have made the governorate a particularly fragile region in Iraq for years. This is seen in key indicators of fragility from 2012 in Table 1, obtained from the last nation-wide government held household survey available in Iraq. All districts in Thi-Qar systematically doubled the Iraq average in terms of poverty and male youth unemployment. It shows that almost half of families in the governorate were living below the poverty line and more than half of male youth were already struggling to find sustainable employment. Against this background it is not surprising to find that rural Thi-Qar has been a source of young recruits for the Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs) since 2014, as they offered employment prospects to a much neglected group. These units supported Baghdads fight against ISIL as a response to a fatwa issued by the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani to defend Iraq and its citizens, and remain mobilised after the formal end of the conflict in what is a very politicised topic impacting the future of Iraq.

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Improving prospects for peace and stability in vulnerable communities in southern Iraq [EN/AR] - Iraq - ReliefWeb

By Shelly Kittleson

BAGHDAD - March marks the one-year anniversary of an Iraqi law meant to grant financial compensation to victims of the Yezidi genocide.

The Iraqi parliament passed the Yezidi Survivors Law one year ago this month after debating it for two years. However, civil society organizations in the country warn that insufficient funds have been allocated to implement it.

Meanwhile, continued insecurity in the Yezidi ethno-religious group's traditional homeland in northwestern Iraq and insufficient funds to implement the law leaves little for IDPs and refugees from the suffering ethno-religious minority to go back to.

The Coalition for Just Reparations (C4JR), an alliance of Iraqi civil society organizations, held a press conference in Baghdad earlier this month to mark the anniversary and claimed no funding had yet been granted for its implementation this year.

A statement issued by the coalition claimed that:" this groundbreaking law is one of the very few examples of states taking deliberate action to specifically address the rights and needs of survivors of conflict-related sexual violence".

It stressed, however, that "any law is only as good as its implementation" and that: "Apart from the preliminary emergency funding allocated in 2021, no financial means have, as of yet, been envisaged to support the sustainable and thorough implementation of the law in 2022." Thousands of members of the ethno-religious group were killed, displaced or abducted after the Islamic State (ISIS) took over their area in the northwestern part of Iraq close to both the Turkish and the Syrian border in August 2014.

Over 2,000 women - many of whom enslaved and tortured sexually, psychologically, and physically by ISIS fighters - remain missing.

Some have been found in recent months in the al-Hol IDP camp thought to house only family members of ISIS in northeastern Syria, infamous for the risks and poor conditions within the camp. Others were taken by ISIS fighters who "married" them to other areas of Syria.

Thousands of Yezidi remain internally displaced within Iraq, most of whom in the Kurdistan Region, almost five years after the country declared victory against ISIS in 2017.

Many others fled abroad with a significant number leaving to Germany, where there had been a large Yezidi community even before the emergence of ISIS. It was a German court that in December of last year held the world's first criminal trial addressing genocide against the Yezidis, leading to the conviction of a man known as Taha Al. J for genocide and crimes against humanity. The case marked the first time a former ISIS member had been convicted of genocide.

Numerous refugees who returned to Iraq on flights from the border between Belarus and Poland late last year, amid freezing conditions and a sealed border, were from the Yezidi minority group.

Some of the Yazidis that arrived in Erbil on humanitarian flights in the autumn said that they did not have funds even for transportation back to the internally displaced persons (IDP) camps that had previously been their homes for years.

Many now watch the open-door policy towards Ukrainians fleeing their home country as well with something akin to despair.

Late last month, the UN Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by ISIS (UNITAD) began digging up seven mass graves in the Yezidi-majority town of Sinjar, much of which was destroyed by ISIS and the fighting to retake it from the group.

The presence of several non-state armed groups operating in the Sinjar area also prevents the return of IDPs and remains a source of instability. An agreement signed in late 2020 to remove these groups - including the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which trained and engaged in recruitment for a local branch of fighters - remains unimplemented.

Though bombs are not falling on them and they are no longer being rounded up and shot in mass, many Yezidis fear a slow death in an area filled with painful memories while depending indefinitely on humanitarian aid in camps for survival.

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Iraq: Little to return to for Yezidi IDPs and refugees - General news - ANSAMed - ANSAmed

Baghdad, 13-14th March 2022 - 41 government legal advisors and veterinary representatives throughout Iraq participated in the workshop hosted by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) under the title of veterinary legal legislation, in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture, and within the activities of the Project to Improve Animal Health Service Delivery and Disease Control in Iraq funded by the Defence Threat Reduction Agency American (DTRA). The workshop aimed to introduce regulatory mechanisms for animal disease surveillance and control, import and export of animals and their products, as well as to bridge the gap between animal health services and disease control legislation and its practical application.

The representative of the FAO organization in Iraq, Dr. Salah Al-Hajj Hassan, addressed opening remarks by greeting and thanking the attendees. He affirmed the organization's commitment to adopting modern concepts and values in the "One Health" approach to address health threats to animals, humans, plants and the environment. He added that this workshop provides an opportunity to exchange information and ideas on Iraqi animal health legislation and related regulations and how to move forward in amending them in accordance with OIE and international standards. He also explained that all recommendations will be reviewed for the purpose of their announcement after coordination with the Food and Agriculture Organization and the Ministry of Agriculture.

Representative of his excellency the Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Raed Haddad, the legal advisor to the minister conveyed the greetings of his excellency the Minister of Agriculture, in addition to praising the effective cooperation between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Food and Agriculture Organization and the organization's role in implementing activities and programs funded by donors to support the agricultural sector in Iraq.

While the head of the Iraqi Veterinarians Syndicate, Dr. Samira Latif, explained the role of FAO in supporting the agricultural sector, both plant and animal, and the importance of holding these specialized training workshops, including this one (Veterinary Legislation).

The legal advisor to the Iraqi Lawyers Syndicate, Mr. Ahmed Majid Al-Hassan, stressed the importance of involving the Association in studies on veterinary legal legislation, thanking the role of the FAO by shedding light on this important issue.

The workshop was attended by the representative of the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources/Kurdistan Regional Government, representative of the Syndicate of Veterinarians in Kurdistan, The deans of both veterinary colleges in Baghdad and Duhok, with the participation of officials and representatives of veterinary services from Erbil and Baghdad, in addition to the targeted governorates (Duhok, Nineveh, Anbar, Wasit, Muthanna and Basrah).

The training included of presentations, group work, practical examples and case studies to enrich discussions on elements of veterinary legislation, including animal disease control and animal production, and was supplemented by the exchange of observational experiences and the exchange of information among the participants.

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Improving Delivery of Animal Health Services and Disease Surveillance in Iraq (Legislation Training workshop) - Iraq - ReliefWeb