The Islamic State has begun exacerbating concerns about the availability of electricity in Iraq by targeting power plants and other key infrastructure for destruction. Baghdad announced on Sunday that unspecified “terrorist groups,” which observing media identify as the Islamic State, blew up a power plant in Kirkuk.
Kurdish residents of a town near northeastern Khanaqin, Iraq, evacuated their 12-home village following a wave of killings in the area carried out by the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), the Kurdish outlet Rudaw reported on Wednesday.
Turkish-backed paramilitary groups, working with the Syrian rebel Ahrar al-Sham militia, have reportedly taken to attacking and torturing Kurdish civilians in northern Afrin, Syria, witnesses alleged this week.
Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq thanked Japan on Wednesday for helping the Kurdistan region solve a major problem it had with electricity shortages by signing a ten-year, nearly $120 million contract.
The Shiite-led Iraqi government is trying to force a demographic change in 500 Kurdish villages across northern Iraq’s disputed Kirkuk province, arming and resettling thousands of Shiite Arabs in the region, a Kurdish mayor reportedly claimed this week.
The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) killed the head of a village and three farmers in the most recent attacks in northern Iraq’s Kirkuk province, a testament to the menace posed by the jihadist organization six months after Baghdad declared final victory over it, Kurdistan 24 learned from an anonymous source this week.
The government of Turkey issued a blanket decree Sunday firing 18,632 state employees for unspecified “links with terror groups” and has increased the number of arrests for “insulting the president” ahead of the inauguration of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Monday.
The prime minister of northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) congratulated Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday for his re-election victory, saying the ties between Ankara and Erbil had improved under the Turkish leader’s watch.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, in a speech Monday marking his victory in a landmark election that granted him sweeping new executive powers, pledged to continue Ankara’s military offensive to remove the U.S.-allied Kurds from power in northern Syria.
The Turkish military announced Monday that Turkish soldiers, accompanied by American counterparts, began “independent patrols” in Manbij, Syrian Kurdistan, where Ankara spent months threatening an invasion against local Kurdish forces.
A report published Thursday alleges that Turkey-backed fighters from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) are seizing, looting, and destroying property in the predominantly Kurdish region of Afrin, further fueling fears that Ankara is quietly forcing a demographic change along its border with Syria.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by the United States, reportedly expressed a desire this week to negotiate the future of the swathes of territory it controls in northern Syria with the Iranian- and Russian-backed regime of dictator Bashar al-Assad.
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) confirmed on Tuesday that it reached an agreement with Turkey to pull the American-allied Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), deemed “terrorists’ by Ankara, from the northern Syrian city of Manbij, arguing that the move will “reduce tensions.”
Turkey has launched a major military surge against the terrorist Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, where Ankara has already set up 11 regional bases and doubled its military footprint, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim declared over the weekend.
Contents: Syria’s al-Assad makes delusional threats to US military; Israel and Russia reach agreement to keep Iran out of Syria’s south
The Trump administration this week refuted news reports claiming the U.S. had reached an agreement with Turkey on a plan for the withdrawal of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) from Syria’s Manbij.
An Ankara court turned down an appeal this week from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) to release its jailed presidential candidate, Selahattin Demirtaş, in time for Turkey’s snap elections in June.
Shiite Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, expected to be named the victor when Friday’s final Iraqi election results are published, is reportedly seeking to ally his Sairoon coalition (On the move) with several allied blocs in Iraq to form a government.
Syrian and Iraqi Kurdish officials met with Iranian counterparts this week as Tehran makes a bid to convince the Kurds to abandon their relationship with the United States.
Turkey is expected to give an al-Qaeda-affiliated group known as the al-Rahman Corps the police command of the Afrin region in Syria along with authority to impose Sharia, or strict Islamic laws, on the residents, which include members of the persecuted Yazidi and Christian minorities, a monitor group revealed over the weekend.
Kurdish forces in Syria announced this week that they have captured a Syrian-born German jihadist linked to 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta and other terrorists, Mohammed Haydar Zammar.
A Turkish court ordered the continued detention of American Pastor Andrew Brunson on Monday, deeming him a flight risk and placing him in what advocates call an “extremely grim” prison on charges of having used his Christian sermons to promote Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen.
Turkey is reportedly expected to enhance financial and medical support to factions from one of its top allies, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), as the rebel group continues to participate in Ankara’s offensive against U.S.-allied Kurds in northern Syria.
The government of Iraq announced Wednesday that it was considering special forces and ground operations against the Islamic State in neighboring Iraq, a battleground already featuring at least ten major military actors fighting each other.
The Iraqi security troops rekindled their relationship with the Kurdish Peshmerga forces this week as Iraq faces an Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) resurgence.
The Pentagon refused to confirm the accuracy of media reports that the United States military is intensifying its presence in northern Syria’s Manbij region, only indicating that the U.S. is engaged in talks with Turkey to de-escalate the tensions in the area in a statement to Breitbart News Wednesday.
U.S. President Donald Trump suggested on Tuesday that Saudi Arabia may have to pay for continuing America’s military presence in war-ravaged Syria.
The United States is carrying out a routine “review” of its operations in Syria, U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy for the coalition against the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) declared on Tuesday in response to the commander-in-chief’s remarks that American troops will soon pull out of the country.
The United States is contemplating boosting its military footprint in northern Syria where America’s NATO partner Turkey is on the brink of seizing more territory from U.S.-allied Kurds.
The U.S.-based representative for the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq implored the Trump administration to help the region recover from the crisis it is facing after the military defeat of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) in an event on Tuesday.
The United States is reportedly increasing its presence in northern Syria’s Manbij region against the possibility of clashes between American allies Turkey and Kurdish forces.
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis asserted on Tuesday that the government of Turkey is correct to be concerned about Kurdish factions in Sinjar, Iraq, where they participated in eradicating the Islamic State amid an attempting suicide of the majority-Yazidi population there.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Iraq that his military would “do what it necessary” and attack Sinjar, site of the Islamic State’s Yazidi genocide, if Baghdad did not occupy the area and forcibly expel Kurdish forces there.
The announcement Thursday night that former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton would replace Gen. H.R. McMaster as President Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor confirms the arrival of a new, distinctive voice in the Trump administration.
Turkey insists it has reached an agreement to work with the United States to bring the fight to Manbij, Syria, as part of its post-Afrin efforts to expand its aggressive military operation to other Kurdish-held areas further east and into Iraq if necessary.
Vian Dakhil, Iraq’s only Yazidi member of parliament, denounced the use of Yazidi children as child soldiers by the Islamic State, telling the Iraqi news agency Al Sumaria this week that the victims were “brainwashed” into jihad.
The Turkish government entered Afrin city this week, the main population center of the eponymous Syrian Kurdish province, fueling fears of artificially imposed “demographic change” meant to displace local Kurds and replace them with Arabs and Turkmen.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu told reporters this weekend that the United States had reached a “common understanding” with Turkey for a plan to expel its allies, the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG/YPJ), from northern Manbij, Syria.
Masrour Barzani, the head of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) security council in Iraq, told the outlet Kurdistan 24 during a visit to Washington this week that the Islamic State is “re-emerging” in places like Kirkuk, previously held by the Kurdish Peshmerga.
The Syrian government’s SANA news outlet reports that unspecified “popular forces” supporting dictator Bashar al-Assad have arrived in the northern province of Afrin, currently under invasion by the Turkish military.
