Kurdish fighters in Syria say they have captured around 900 Islamic State fighters from various European countries and are now calling on those countries to take the jihadis back.
The Trump administration is “now driving to make sure” America’s “great partners” in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), the Syrian Kurds, participate in discussions to determine the future of Syria, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said this week.
The agreement between Turkey and the United States to push U.S.-allied Kurdish militiamen out of Syria’s Manbij region is delayed, “but not completely dead,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared, the Hurriyet newspaper reported on Thursday.
Turkey intends to completely clear northern Syria of Kurdish militiamen from the U.S.-allied People’s Protection Units (YPG/YPJ), considered by Ankara to be affiliated with the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) terrorist group, Turkish officials indicated this week.
Turkish authorities continue to arrest members of the U.S.-allied Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) for responding to Ankara’s invasion of the predominantly Kurdish city of Afrin in northern Syria.
Speaking to reporters at a press conference in New York Wednesday, President Donald Trump responded from questions from multiple Kurdish reporters, who sought details in how the Trump administration would help Kurdish governments in Iraq and Syria protect themselves from radical Islamic groups and hostile neighbors.
Iranian Kurdish insurgents reportedly vowed this week to intensify their fight against Iran in response to the missile attacks against Kurdish positions in Iraqi Kurdistan claimed by the hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) this month.
Pro-Kurdish protesters attacked Iran’s embassy in Paris on Friday. Iran says that 15 Kurdish activists burned the Iranian flag in front of the embassy.
A commander in the Iranian Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) dismissed the potential of war with the United States in remarks Friday, claiming that America would never incite a war because its leaders are too aware they would lose against the beleaguered Iranian military.
A representative for one of the two Iranian Kurdish parties operating in Iraq who the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) bombed this week urged the United States on Wednesday to intervene and support their right to exist freely.
CONTENTS: In a major escalation, Iran’s missiles strike Kurdish targets in northern Iraq; Iran’s missile attack displays the rising power of the IRGC in Iran.
Residents in Kirkuk, Iraq, are protesting that they have run “out of water,” joining a chorus of protests in cities like Basra over Baghdad’s inability to provide basic government services, the Kurdish outlet Rudaw reported on Wednesday.
The Turkish military is struggling to keep up operations against the Syrian Defense Forces (SDF) in northern Afrin, a group primarily made up of the U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG/YPJ). The prolonged operation in Kurdish territory has limited Turkey as it prepares to protect Sunni Arab civilians in Idlib awaiting an imminent operation by dictator Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday.
Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar told U.S. special representative Ambassador James Jeffrey on Tuesday that Turkey wants Syrian Kurdish militia forces to abandon the border region.
The Iraqi parliament met on Monday for the first time since the elections in May, but it remains unclear which bloc of allied political interests will form the new government.
President Donald Trump told Bloomberg reporters Thursday that he was “very disappointed” in Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for not yet releasing American pastor Andrew Brunson from his prolonged imprisonment on false charges.
Trump administration officials and European diplomats told NBC News on Thursday that hundreds of captured Islamic State fighters may be sent to Iraq for incarceration, with a few of the highest-value prisoners detained in the American facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The Iraqi government has removed 47 Kurdish officials from their posts in Kirkuk, beginning with the regional governor, since reasserting control over the disputed region in October 2017. The use of “Kurdish phrases” was banned on Tuesday by the state-run North Gas Company, which operates in Kirkuk.
Representatives from the Iranian, Russian, and Turkish governments met in the Russian resort city of Sochi on Monday to discuss the future of Syria, including humanitarian concerns, de-escalation zones, and the structure of post-civil war government.
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.
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 major opposition candidates in Turkey’s presidential election, scheduled for June 24, have launched campaigns against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and have strategically avoided targeting each other, instead spending much of the week condemning Erdogan’s moves towards an Islamist dictatorship.
The second-in-command for Turkey’s Republican People’s Party (CHP) told Kurdish news outlet Rudaw on Tuesday that the group would likely offer the country’s deputy presidency to a Kurd.
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.
Presidential candidate Selahattin Demirtas of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) gave a remarkable campaign speech to Turkish voters on Sunday. His supporters say Demirtas is the only real challenger to incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, even though Demirtas is running with a rather large handicap: he is in jail.
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.”
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.
Syrian dictator Bashar Assad gave an interview to Russia’s RT television on Thursday in which he said the United States is “losing its cards” on the civil war battlefield and must withdraw all forces from his country or risk a conflict with the Syrian military and Russian forces.
Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Recep Akdag said on Tuesday that it is “completely inconceivable to return Afrin back to the control of the Syrian regime” after Turkey invaded the northern border region in January.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed over the weekend to launch new military operations in Syria similar to its previous offensives that targeted U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters he considers to be terrorists.
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.
The pro-Kurdish, anti-Islamist People’s Democratic Party (HDP) may run its imprisoned former co-chair, Selahattin Demirtaş, as a candidate against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in elections scheduled for June.
