ISIS – IRAQ - KURDISTAN : NEWS THREAD

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Excellent photo of Masrour Barzani entering a
press conference room live from the front lines

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The Telegraph

Boris Johnson takes the fight to Islamic State

The Mayor of London poses with a Kalashnikov during a secret trade mission to northern Iraq



Boris Johnson has flown to Iraq’s Kurdistan region to visit British troops leading the fight against Islamic State. The suit-wearing Mayor of London posed with an AK47 during the secret trip to the capital of the region, Erbil.

Mr Johnson was visiting British troops, who are hepling to train the Peshmerga, the Kurdish fighters battling the jihadi group.

Islamic State controls large swathes of Syria and Iraq and the US-led coalition has been carrying out air strikes since August.

Mr Johnson’s decision to visit the warzone is likely to be seen as an attempt to burnish his leadership credentials ahead of the May election.

Mr Johnson told the Evening Standard he was hoping to strengthen economic ties between Kurdistan and London.

“I'm also going to support some of our guys out there who are trying to train the Peshmerga fighters, so we will see first hand some of the good Britain is doing in the area,” he said.

It has emerged that the Mayor of London has recently settled a US tax bill he had previously described as "absolutely outrageous".

Mr Johnson, who has dual nationality, faced a demand from the US authorities to pay capital gains tax on profit from the sale of his house in North London.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... State.html

[Piling]

I am sure that Daesh were very frightened

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Lol, the winter sun of Erbil should be too strong for the mayor of Londo : no used to it

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Iraqi Kurdish land grabs anger Sunni Arabs

Posted on January 30, 2015 by Editorial Staff in National

Dr. Denise Natali – Al Monitor

US-led efforts to counter the Islamic State (IS) with Kurdish peshmerga partners is having a backlash on Sunni Arab communities. Relying on Iraqi Kurds to act as coalition boots on the ground may help eliminate some IS safe havens, but it is fueling Kurdish land grabs. Iraqi Kurds are using US airstrikes and the political vacuum in northern Iraq not only to push back IS, but also to recapture the disputed territories and oil fields — some of the very measures that have fueled Sunni Arab resentment since 2003. These trends are undermining the effort to assuage Sunni Arab grievances and laying the groundwork for Iraq’s next protracted, subnational conflict.

While minorities and “apostates” have been brutally victimized by IS, Sunni Arabs have become primary targets in local anti-IS campaigns. In some areas, Shiite militias have retaliated against Sunni Arabs through kidnappings, killings and forced population displacements. The militias remain stationed in Iraq’s disputed territories, which they helped liberate alongside Kurdish peshmerga, Iranian Quds Forces and the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF). Their engagement reflects Iranian influences in Iraq and disputes between Baghdad and Erbil that preceded the IS onslaught, and which are feeding local tensions.

Similarly, as Iraqi Kurds benefit from coalition airstrikes and take control of former IS safe havens in Northern Iraq, they are engaging in demographic and territorial engineering to advance their nationalist agenda. Kurdish peshmerga are preventing Sunni Arab populations from returning to their homes while attempting to Kurdify these territories. The peshmerga’s offensives in Diyala, Kirkuk and western Mosul are particularly confrontational because they expand the Kurdish presence into areas outside the Kurdistan Region and considered part of Iraq by all Arab Iraqis.

Indeed, Iraqi Kurds consider these territories as rightfully belonging to the Kurdistan Region and are taking steps to consolidate their control. Some Kurdish officials have publicly affirmed that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) will not give back these territories and “never ever let Arabs control them again.” To secure the territories, the Kurdish peshmerga are organizing special minority group militias under the control of the KRG’s Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs, including Kurdish Shabak peshmerga forces, Kurdish Yazidi peshmerga forces and Kurdish Assyrian peshmerga forces.

By expanding its territorial borders, the KRG may hope to leverage its nationalist demands in Baghdad. In fact, current political conditions leave the Iraqi government little opportunity to retaliate. The ISF cannot effectively push back the Kurdish peshmerga, the KRG has Western military support and Baghdad is cooperating with the KRG in the anti-IS campaign. Both sides are also financially stressed and relying on a temporary oil deal to mitigate their economic morass.

The security problem, however, is not whether Baghdad can thwart Kurdish territorial expansionism. In the weak and hyper-fragmented Iraqi state under IS threat, Kurdish unilateral land grabs directly challenge the aims of disenfranchised Sunni Arabs who seek greater autonomy and their own region, and who remain committed to Iraq’s territorial boundaries. These actions also place Iraqi Kurds in direct confrontation — once again — with Sunni Arabs who largely populate northern Iraq, alongside minority groups. Many regard these territories as the homeland of Sunni Arab nationalism and Sunni Islam in Iraq. Assyrians consider the Nineveh plains as their own heartland and not necessarily Kurdish territory or belonging to the KRG.

While Iraqi Kurds may regard their territorial push as a necessary security measure, it is aggravating tensions with some Sunni Arab communities. In a recent news conference in Baghdad, Minister of State for Provincial Affairs and member of the Iraqi Parliament Ahmed al-Jabouri accused the Kurdish peshmerga forces of destroying 700 homes in Jalawla after a battle with IS and “denying the return of Arab residents in localities where IS has been expelled.” Sunni Arab parliamentarians from Nineveh province have publicly criticized the Kurdish peshmerga for their “scorched-earth policies that have caused the displacement of Arab villagers under the pretext of fighting IS.” Sunni Arab groups are also resentful of what they perceive as preferential coalition protection and support of Kurdish regions in the anti-IS campaign.

These trends have implications for the coalition’s anti-IS strategy and regional stability. Arming and training the Kurdish peshmerga in cooperation with the Iraqi government certainly supports the effort to counter IS; however, reinvigorating the deep-rooted conflict over disputed territories does not. By providing weapons to the KRG unconditionally and without corresponding support to Sunni Arab groups that oppose IS, the coalition is unintentionally shifting the balance of power in northern Iraq. Left unchecked, these measures will encourage a Sunni Arab backlash in the territories and the Kurdistan Region. The current strategy also risks alienating Sunni Arabs, whose support is essential to the anti-IS campaign.

Redrawing the Iraqi map with guns is a recipe for future disaster. If US policy-makers and military planners want to rely on local partners to degrade and ultimately destroy IS, then they should also understand the complicated local dynamics tied to these alliances and the secondary consequences for strategic objectives. Given the significant political shifts underway, disabling IS and stabilizing the region will demand preparations for a post-IS Iraq that will regrettably be marked by subnational battles over borders, territories and resources, with or without Baghdad.

Denise Natali is a columnist for Al-Monitor. She is also a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, where she specializes in Iraq, regional energy issues and the Kurdish problem. The views expressed are her own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the US government.

Copyright ©, respective author or news agency, al-monitor.com

http://ekurd.net/iraqi-kurdish-land-grabs-anger-sunni-arabs-2015-01-30

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If someone broke into my home - took control of it - threw me out - I inturn (with the help of the police) threw out the evil thieves - those thieves would have no rights to complain

The Kurds have been waiting for many years to have the disputed lands returned to them - but the Iraqi government has continued to delay the process - and has even managed to increase the numbers of thieving Arabs in traditional Kurdish lands

KICK ALL ARABS OUT OF KURDISTAN

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Reuters

Islamic State attacks near Kirkuk, bombs kill 18 in Baghdad
Reporting By Stephen Kalin and Saif Hameed; Editing by Dominic Evans

Islamic State militants struck at Kurdish forces southwest of the Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Friday morning, while bombs in Baghdad and Samarra killed at least 21 people, security and medical sources said.

Police in the northern province of Kirkuk said Islamic State launched mortars and attacked positions of Kurdish peshmerga fighters in four districts southwest of Kirkuk city.

Islamic State has frequently battled Iraqi security forces and Shi'ite militias further south and west since the radical jihadist group surged across the Syrian border last summer, but attacks on the outskirts of Kurdish-controlled Kirkuk have been less frequent.

A peshmerga officer told Reuters his forces had recaptured the district of Mariam Bek but said clashes were ongoing in Tal al-Ward, Maktab Khalid and Mullah Abdullah.

Medical sources said at least four Kurdish fighters were killed in the fighting, including senior commander Brigadier Sherko Fatih, and at least 70 others were wounded.

More than 750 peshmerga have been killed in combat since Islamic State overran their defenses in northern Iraq last summer, prompting U.S.-led air strikes.

The Kurds have now regained most of the ground they lost in August. However, peshmerga commanders complain they remain ill-equipped compared with the militants, who plundered Iraqi arms depots when they overran Mosul in June.

BOMBS IN SAMARRA, BAGHDAD

Security sources said at least 18 people were killed when two bombs went off in Baghdad's Bab al-Sharqi district on Friday morning, home to a large market and across the Tigris river from the Green Zone, which houses most government buildings.

Bombings are frequent in Baghdad, where Sunni insurgents from Islamic State, which controls large swathes of territory in Iraq's north and west, regularly conduct suicide attacks.

Three civilians were later killed and at least 10 others wounded in northwestern Baghdad when mortars landed in residential neighborhoods, police and medics said.

Police in the holy city of Samarra, about 125 km (80 miles) north of the capital, said two suicide bombers targeted a security checkpoint in the city center, killing three and wounding five members of the police and Shi'ite militias.

Police say they thwarted a third suicide attack by shooting a suspected militant, but clashes broke out on the western outskirts of Samarra following another explosion, with police and militias battling Islamic State fighters.

Samarra holds potent symbolism for Iraqis. In February 2006 Sunni militants blew up a shrine to the ninth century Imam Askari, triggering revenge attacks by Shi'ites which tipped Iraq into years of sectarian violence.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/ ... OI20150130

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Reuters

Kurdish forces free oil workers at Kirkuk crude station: officials
Reporting by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Hugh Lawson

Iraqi Kurdish forces on Sunday found and freed workers who had gone missing a day earlier when Islamic State insurgents seized a small crude oil station near the northern city of Kirkuk, the provincial governor and a provincial councilman said.

The Kurds retook the crude oil separation unit in Khabbaz on Saturday evening but had been unable to immediately determine the fate of the employees, whom they found in an underground room.

"All of them were rescued and they are all safe," Kirkuk Governor Najmaldin Karim told Reuters by phone, denying reports that some of the workers had been taken hostage.

Earlier reports said 15 workers had gone missing, but provincial councilman Ali Mehdi said the number could be as high as 25. Mehdi confirmed that the workers had all been freed.

One senior Kurdish commander was killed in Saturday's attack, the most serious assault on Kirkuk since the summer.

IS militants seized at least four small oilfields when they overran large areas of northern Iraq last summer and began selling crude oil and gasoline to finance their operations.

Khabbaz is a small oilfield 20 km (12 miles) southwest of Kirkuk with a maximum production capacity of 15,000 barrels per day. It was producing around 10,000 bpd before the attack.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/ ... ce=twitter

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BBC News

Iraq: Baghdad bomb blasts kill more than 30

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At least 34 people have been killed in three bomb attacks in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, police say.

The explosions came just hours before a long-standing overnight curfew was to be lifted.

In the first attack, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a restaurant in the predominantly Shia New Baghdad area, killing 22 and wounding at least 50.

More people were killed in attacks on two separate markets, one in the centre and one in the southwest of Baghdad.

Interior ministry spokesman Brigadier General Saad Maan said he did not believe that the blasts were linked to the decision to lift the curfew.

On Thursday, the government announced that the curfew would end at midnight on Saturday (2100 GMT). The Iraqi capital has had some form of curfew in place since the US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003.

The latest version, which restricts movement from midnight to 0500 (2100-0200 GMT), has been in force for seven years.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered the lifting of restrictions to normalise life and to demonstrate that Baghdad no longer faces a threat from Islamic State, the militant group which had gained control of areas of northern and western Iraq last year.

In one such area on Saturday - the Zumar district in northern Iraq - the excavation of a mass grave revealed the remains of at least 16 members of the Yazidi religious minority who came under attack from IS last year, the Reuters news agency reported.

It is the second such grave found this week.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-31191814

According to world news there were actually 3 separate bombs in different locations:

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Reuters

Islamic State fighters seize western Iraqi town
(Reporting by Saif Hameed in Baghdad and David Alexander in Washington; Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Islamic State insurgents took control on Thursday of most of the western Iraqi town of al-Baghdadi, threatening an air base where U.S. Marines are training Iraqi troops, officials said.

Al-Baghdadi, about 85 km (50 miles) northwest of Ramadi in Anbar province, had been besieged for months by the radical Sunni Islamist militants who captured vast swathes of northern and western Iraq last year.

"Ninety percent of al-Baghdadi district has fallen under the control of the insurgents," district manager Naji Arak told Reuters by phone.

Militants attacked al-Baghdadi from two directions earlier in the day and then advanced on the town, intelligence sources and officials in the Jazeera and Badiya operations commands said.

The officials said another group of insurgents then attacked the heavily-guarded Ain al-Asad air base five km southwest of the town, but were unable to break into it.

About 320 U.S. Marines are training members of the Iraqi 7th Division at the base, which has been struck by mortar fire on at least one previous occasion since December.

Pentagon spokeswoman Navy Commander Elissa Smith confirmed the fighting in al-Baghdadi. She said there had been no direct attack on the air base, adding: "There were reports of ineffective indirect fire in the vicinity of the base."

An Iraqi defence ministry spokesman declined to comment on the situation in Anbar.

The death toll from the fighting was not immediately clear.

Most of the surrounding towns in Anbar fell under Islamic State control after the group's rapid advance across the Syrian border last summer.

Elsewhere in Iraq, five civilians were killed when bombs went off in two towns south of Baghdad, police and medical sources said. Such attacks are not uncommon in and around the capital.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/ ... 3120150212

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Reuters

Iraq's Sunni blocs halt parliament activities after sheikh's killing
By Stephen Kalin

Iraq's two main parliamentary lists including Sunni lawmakers suspended their activities on Saturday in protest at the killing of a prominent Sunni tribal leader and the kidnapping of a Sunni member of parliament the night before.

Sheikh Qassem al-Janabi and his son were shot dead along with at least six guards after gunmen stopped their convoy in south Baghdad. The sheikh's nephew, parliamentarian Zayed al-Janabi, was detained but later released.

The Interior Ministry said it would investigate the incident, which raised questions about the government's control over security in the capital, where safety measures were eased last week despite the proliferation of rival armed groups.

The attack also threatened to exacerbate the sectarian tensions that have undermined Iraq's response to Islamic State insurgents who seized large swathes of territory in the country's north and west last year.

"The Iraqiya Alliance and the National Coalition announce they are suspending their participation in sessions of the Council of Representatives as from today," lawmaker Ahmed al-Massari said in a statement broadcast on local television.

Lawmakers said the boycott would include all of the roughly 75 lawmakers in the two lists, including some Shi'ite members.

The statement blamed Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and his ministers of defense and interior for "the breakdown of security and letting loose killers and outlaws to commit crimes of ethnic cleansing".

Sunni politicians and tribal leaders have accused Shi'ite militias organized under the government-run Hashid Shabi, or popular mobilization committee, of killing civilians and destroying their homes in Sunni districts recaptured from Islamic State, which itself has blown up and booby-trapped areas it once controlled.

Abadi, a moderate Shi'ite Islamist who has sought reconciliation between Iraq's Shi'ite and Sunni communities, and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most senior Shi'ite cleric, have denounced such actions. Abadi promised an investigation into the allegations.

No group has claimed responsibility for Friday's attack, but Deputy Prime Minister Saleh Mutlaq called for the eradication of the Shi'ite militias, which operate freely in much of Iraq and have spearheaded the battle against Islamic State insurgents since the army nearly collapsed last summer.

"We must get rid of the militias, and weapons must be in the hands of the state," he told reporters before the victims were buried on Saturday.

"They want to bring down ... the voice of every patriot. This is a message we must understand: to take a stand against the militias and the outlaws."

http://news.yahoo.com/sunni-tribal-lead ... 07326.html

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BBC News

Islamic State militants 'burn to death 45 in Iraq'

Jihadist militants from Islamic State (IS) have burned to death 45 people in the western Iraqi town of al-Baghdadi, the local police chief says.

Exactly who these people were and why they were killed is not clear, but Col Qasim al-Obeidi said he believed some were members of the security forces.

IS fighters captured much of the town, near Ain al-Asad air base, last week.

Col Obeidi said a compound that houses the families of security personnel and local officials was now under attack.

He pleaded for help from the government and the international community.

The fighting and poor communications in the area make it difficult to confirm such reports.

Earlier this month, IS published a video showing militants burning alive a Jordanian air force pilot, whose plane crashed in Syria in December.

Siege

Al-Baghdadi had been besieged for months by Islamic State fighters before its fall on Thursday.

It had been one of the few towns to still be controlled by the Iraqi government in Anbar province, where IS and allied Sunni Arab tribesmen launched an offensive in January 2014.

Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm John Kirby told reporters on Friday that al-Baghdadi's capture needed to be put in perspective.

He said it was the first time in the last couple of months that the jihadist group had taken new ground.

However, Ain al-Asad air base, where about 320 US Marines are training members of the Iraqi army's 7th Division, is only 8km (5 miles) away.

The base was itself attacked by IS militants, among them several suicide bombers, on Friday. The militants were eventually repelled by Iraqi troops backed by US-led coalition aircraft.

In a separate development on Tuesday, the influential Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr announced he was withdrawing his forces from an umbrella group of Shia militia fighting IS alongside the Iraqi army.

He cited what he called the bad behaviour of other militia within the Popular Mobilisation Forces, whom he accused of "wreaking havoc through murdering, kidnapping and violating sanctuaries".

Shia militia have been accused of kidnapping and killing scores of Sunni civilians since Islamic State launched an offensive in northern Iraq last June that saw it seize large swathes of the country.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-31502863

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Here is the Army's declassified Iraq prison file on the leader of ISIS
By Hunter Walker

Relatively little is known about Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the jihadist group Islamic State (also known as ISIS and ISIL). However, newly declassified military documents obtained by Business Insider on Wednesday reveal several new details about the ISIS leader.

The records come from time Baghdadi spent in US Army custody in Iraq. They were released through a Freedom of Information Act request. In these files, Baghdadi was identified by his birth name, Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim Al Badry.

There have been conflicting reports about the time Baghdadi spent as a US detainee. These files identify his "capture date" as Feb. 4, 2004 and the date of his "release in place" as Dec. 8, 2004. According to the records, Baghdadi was captured in Fallujah and held at multiple prison facilities including Camp Bucca and Camp Adder.

Full Article & Photos:

http://uk.businessinsider.com/abu-bakr- ... 015-2?r=US

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BBC News

Iraq-Kurdish force of 25,000 'to retake Mosul from IS'

A joint Iraqi-Kurdish military force of up to 25,000 fighters is being prepared to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from Islamic State (IS), a US official says.

The senior military official has said that the operation to recapture the northern city would probably take place in April or May.

Iraq's second largest city was currently being held by 1,000 to 2,000 IS militants, the official added.

Mosul, which was home to more than a million people, fell to IS last June.

The unnamed official told reporters that no decision had been made on whether a small group of US military advisers would be needed on the ground to direct air support.

The official said all of the fighters in the force would have gone through training by the US.

The official added that the operation would be needed by May, otherwise it would be compromised by the summer heat, although he added that it could be delayed if the Iraqi forces were not ready.

Full Article:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-31543415