KRG president thanks Iran for support in fighting ISIL
The president of Iraq #39;s Kurdistan region has appreciated Iran #39;s support for the neighboring country in its fight against the ISIL. Masoud Barzani said Iran has always stood by Iraq during...
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KRG president thanks Iran for support in fighting ISIL - Video
The fall of Mosul and the quick territorial expansion of ISIL in Iraq took some by surprise. What contributed to ISIL's quick success was cooperation from local Sunni tribes and members of the traditionally secular and nationalist Baath party. This seemingly counterintuitive alliance has its rationale and deep roots in history.
The successful cooperation between radical Islamist factions, Sunni tribes and representatives of the former ruling party - currently commanders of paramilitary groups - can be traced back to the policies of Saddam Hussein in the early 1980s, which aimed to foster closer ties between those espousing the ideas of political Islam and the Baath party.
The historical preconditions for the advent of Islamist ideas in Iraq and their eager adoption by Sunni resistance forces are clearly discernible in the strategy proposed at the time by the then Iraqi president.
A secular party with Islamist ties
In 1986, at a meeting with representatives of the pan-Arab national command - the supreme ideological body of the Baath Party - Saddam Hussein offered a ceasefire, or even an alliance, between the party and the Muslim Brotherhood movement in Egypt and Sudan. In practice, for the first time in its history the militant and secular Baath party declared its readiness to cooperate with representatives of the so-called political Islam.
In the same year, the Iraqi president also defined the difference between the "democratic, national, pan-Arab state" and the "religious state" proclaimed by the Muslim Brotherhood. Following in the footsteps of the founding father of Arab nationalism and of the pan-Arab Baath party Michel Aflaq, Saddam clearly declared that he was not an atheist, but warned against any attempt to establish a religious party with an either Sunni or Shia bias. Saddam's warning at the time was probably addressed at the Islamic Dawa party, which had a dominant role among the Shia community and was regarded as the main competitor of the Baath party.
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The crisis in Iraq: Was the rise of ISIL a surprise ...
IRBIL, Iraq For three years, he worked closely with U.S. forces in Iraq. Now Ammar Younes sits in his frigid tent in a camp in Iraqs Kurdish region, using a scalpel to gouge pieces of shrapnel out of his mangled legs as his young children look on.
A trainer in the Iraqi army, the 34-year-old was wounded when Islamic State extremists placed a bomb under his car in Mosul in June, just a week before the northern city fell to the militants. He was forced to flee his hospital bed, still wearing his medical gown, when the city was overrun.
Younes is one of more than 2 million Iraqis uprooted this year by the advance of the Islamic State, an exodus that has compounded this countrys massive displacement crisis.
About 1.7million Iraqis fled their homes for other parts of the country from 2006 to 2008, the worst days of sectarian conflict after the U.S. -led invasion of 2003. Most have yet to return to their homes. Meanwhile, the war in neighboring Syria has spawned more than 3.2million refugees, some of whom have sought shelter in Iraq.
The speed and scale of the latest Iraq crisis have stunned communities, international humanitarian organizations and the Iraqi government, which is poorly equipped to help displaced people as it fights a war against Islamist militants and struggles to balance its books amid diving oil prices. Adding to the misery of the displaced, the winter has set in, sending temperatures below freezing.
Almost half of the Iraqis fleeing their communities this year have crowded into Iraqi Kurdistan, already home to more than 200,000 Syrian refugees.
With resources scarce, a scramble for survival is underway. The displaced say their sects, ethnicities and whether they have crossed an international border and legally qualify as refugees can determine their level of access to the scant aid available.
Younes has spent more than $2,000 on surgeries to remove shrapnel from his legs. But he said that hes struggling to afford further care and that free clinics lack the specialized treatment he needs.
He complained that his plight is made worse by his being a Sunni Arab, like the Islamic State fighters, and thus deemed a security risk. He said he sometimes finds it difficult to get permission to leave the camp, even for medical treatment.
We are at the bottom of the pile, he said. We are blamed for helping the terrorists, but we are the ones who have suffered most from them.
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Iraq faces new crisis as winter descends on millions uprooted by Islamic State
The Washington Post
IRBIL, Iraq For three years, he worked closely with U.S. forces in Iraq. Now Ammar Younes sits in his frigid tent in a camp in Iraqs Kurdish region, using a scalpel to gouge pieces of shrapnel out of his mangled legs as his young children look on.
A trainer in the Iraqi army, the 34-year-old was wounded when Islamic State extremists placed a bomb under his car in Mosul in June, just a week before the northern city fell to the militants. He was forced to flee his hospital bed, still wearing his medical gown, when the city was overrun.
Younes is one of more than 2 million Iraqis uprooted this year by the advance of the Islamic State, an exodus that has compounded this countrys massive displacement crisis.
About 1.7million Iraqis fled their homes for other parts of the country from 2006 to 2008, the worst days of sectarian conflict after the U.S. -led invasion of 2003. Most have yet to return to their homes. Meanwhile, the war in neighboring Syria has spawned more than 3.2million refugees, some of whom have sought shelter in Iraq.
The speed and scale of the latest Iraq crisis have stunned communities, international humanitarian organizations and the Iraqi government, which is poorly equipped to help displaced people as it fights a war against Islamist militants and struggles to balance its books amid diving oil prices. Adding to the misery of the displaced, the winter has set in, sending temperatures below freezing.
Almost half of the Iraqis fleeing their communities this year have crowded into Iraqi Kurdistan, already home to more than 200,000 Syrian refugees.
Seivan Selim/AP Photo In this Dec. 10, 2014 photo, children from Yazidi families displaced by Islamic State group militants warm their hands over hot coals in a partially constructed building in Dohuk, northern Iraq.
With resources scarce, a scramble for survival is underway. The displaced say their sects, ethnicities and whether they have crossed an international border and legally qualify as refugees can determine their level of access to the scant aid available.
Younes has spent more than $2,000 on surgeries to remove shrapnel from his legs. But he said that hes struggling to afford further care and that free clinics lack the specialized treatment he needs.
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Iraq faces new crisis as Islamic State displaces millions
An Iraqi Christian prays inside a shrine on the grounds of the Mazar Mar Eillia Catholic Church in Irbil, in northern Iraq. Irbil has become home to hundreds of Iraqi Christians who fled their homes as the Islamic State advanced earlier this year. Matt Cardy/Getty Images hide caption
An Iraqi Christian prays inside a shrine on the grounds of the Mazar Mar Eillia Catholic Church in Irbil, in northern Iraq. Irbil has become home to hundreds of Iraqi Christians who fled their homes as the Islamic State advanced earlier this year.
Northern Iraq is a lot more diverse than just Arabs and Kurds or Sunni and Shiite. For centuries, it has been home to multiple religious groups with ancient roots in the region.
But more than a decade of turmoil has driven many religious minorities out, with the most recent example being the onslaught of the self-proclaimed Islamic State militants, or ISIS.
The scene recently at the humble Mar Yusef church in the northern city of Dohuk encapsulates the situation. The denominations worship in shifts. Chaldean Christians at 6 p.m., followed by Orthodox an hour later and then the Syriacs.
Their clergy, in distinctive robes and hats particular to their fold, greet the faithful at the modest house of worship on a side street in a predominantly Kurdish town. The wooden pews are rough, space heaters provide warmth and a twinkling Christmas tree marks the season.
But now attendance is sparse because so many Christians have already left Iraq.
Dr. Kamal Yusef is waiting on this rainy night to pray with his family, but he, too, hopes to leave Iraq. His home was in Mosul, Iraq's second largest city. But a few months ago, Islamist militants from the Islamic State arrived at his front door with AK-47s and delivered a bleak menu of choices: He could stay and pay a tax, he could convert, or they would kill him.
"You have to change your religion to stay there," he says with a bitter laugh.
ISIS seized Yusef's home and drove the Christian community out of Mosul where Christians have lived for some 2,000 years. He says Christians can no longer feel at home in Iraq.
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With Each New Upheaval In Iraq, More Minorities Flee