KURDISTAN WEEKLY EMERGENCY BRIEFING 19.9.2014 Humanitarian The world cannot remain silent about crimes committed by the Islamic State (IS) against women and girls in Iraq, said Pakhshan Zangana, head of the High Council of Women Affairs in the Kurdistan Region. We need strong resolutions from the United Nations and the European Union condemning what happens to our women and children, she said, calling for the world to speak out against the kidnapping of women and children by the jihadi militants. Zangana expressed incredulity at the silence of Arab and Islamic states about these crimes committed under a flat that states there is no God but Allah. She called on countries that have supported IS in the past, and all those that have some influence with the radical group, to push for the release of all women and children being held by the terrorist organisation. rudaw.net/mobile/english/middleeast/iraq/170920141 Farhad Sinjari, a successful businessman, has been uprooted three times. It was these experiences, he says, that led him to act when hundreds of thousands of Iraqis displaced by recent fighting sought sanctuary in Duhok city in the Kurdistan Region, where he now lives. People were living on the streets, sleeping under trees or by the side of the road, he says. I decided to help them because I have been in this situation myself, and I know what they are going through. An estimated 1.8 million Iraqis have been internally displaced since the beginning of the year. UNHCR is mobilising its biggest aid distribution in a decade to provide people with tents, mattresses and other essentials. But the scale of the emergency has also prompted countless individuals such as Farhad to offer what help they can. unhcr.org/5419811b6.html Close to a thousand Syrian Kurds gathered on the border seeking to cross into Turkey after Islamic State fighters seized 21 villages and besieged a Kurdish city in northern Syria, a Reuters witness said. The crowd of mostly women and children sat behind a barbed wire barrier along the border opposite the Turkish village of Dikmetas, 20 km (12 miles) from the Syrian Kurdish city of Ayn al-Arab, known as Kobani in Kurdish. uk.reuters/article/2014/09/19/uk-syria-crisis-turkey-idUKKBN0HE0RJ20140919 Prime Minister David Cameron has vowed that Britain will hunt down those responsible for the murder of British aid worker David Haines and bring them to justice. Speaking after chairing a meeting of Cobra, the emergency security committee, Mr Cameron described Islamic State extremists as monsters who are part of a fanatical organisation. We will hunt down those responsible and bring them to justice, no matter how long it takes, Mr Cameron said. David Haines was an aid worker. He went into harms way, not to harm people but to help his fellow human beings in the hour of their direst need, from the Balkans to the Middle East. David Haines was a British hero. news.sky/story/1335672/pm-we-will-hunt-down-david-haines-killers British imams and Muslim leaders issued a letter in the Independent newspaper to express their revulsion at the murder of David Haines and the threat to their fellow British citizen Alan Henning. independent.co.uk/news/uk/letter-by-british-imams-and-muslim-leaders-appealing-for-release-of-alan-henning-9739900.html Kurdish and international business-people based in Kurdistan raised $40,000 at a fund-raising dinner hosted by the Kurdistan Business Group last week. The dinner, held at Erbils Rotana Hotel, was attended by 160 people whose donations will help alleviate the humanitarian crisis. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (unocha.org), the Barzani Charity Foundation (barzanifoundation.org/en/), the Qandi (qandil.org) and KURDS (kurds-dohuk.org/) charities receive the funds raised. The Kurdistan Business Group was formed in 2008 with the aim of supporting Kurdistan and the prosperity of the Kurdish people through networking events in Kurdistan and in regional and international business hubs. See kurdistan-business-group. Crossing Borders A mini-festival at SOAS in solidarity with Kurdistan DATE: Sunday 28 September 2014 TIME: 7.00pm VENUE: SOAS-JCR, School of Oriental and African Studies [SOAS], Thornhaugh Street, London WC1H 0XG. The Middle East is in crisis. In the midst of it all, suddenly the question of Kurdistan has come to the front. Kurdish fighters are in the front line as saviours of civilisation. At the same time true human tragedies are taking place in the regions that constitute the four Kurdistans. Not least the recent horrific stories coming from the Shengal mountain. Given this situation we are organising a programme of Kurdish music, in solidarity with Kurdistan. The programme will be performed at the School of Oriental and African Studies [SOAS], University of London. Instrumental and vocal music will be performed in Sorani, Kurmanj and Kalhor dialects. The theme of the concert is diversity in diaspora and musical interactions with other cultures. We conceive our work in a context of crossing borders - partly as a reference to the shared musics of the region, and partly as a recognition that the borders of the old colonial system are being shaken by new geopolitical forces. The programme will be performed by musicians and singers of the SOAS Kurdish band, together with guest musicians. Performers: Avan Abdullah [voice] Fatih Baha Aydin [tanbur] Ashkaan Bendoui [daf] Aysegul Erdogan [voice] Phoebe Fisher [violin] Peyman Heydarian [band leader, santur, piano, daf] Francesco Iannuzzelli [ud, double bass] Mansour Izadpanah [voice, guitar] Sarwat Koyi [violin] Amal Saeed Kurda [voice] Alireza Sareban [tonbak] Shahin Talebani [voice] Speakers: Fatemeh Shams [poet] Speakers from Ferdowsi Trust and Aid the Innocent Presenter: Ed Emery Admission free. There will be a bucket collection to raise funds for an agreed UK-registered charity in support of Kurdistan No booking required. Security Kurdish security officials said that peshmerga forces had killed senior Islamic State (IS) commander Yasin Ali Suleiman Shlash known as Abu Abdullah near Khazir on Tuesday. He was killed with a number of other terrorists during a military operation by Peshmerga forces in coordination with the US air force to liberate Hassan Sham and its vicinities, Kurdistan Regions Security Council said in statement. In 2010 he was arrested by the American forces and later transferred to the jurisdiction of the Iraqi government, where he was set free during the infamous Abu Ghraib jailbreak in 2013 and fled to Syria where he joined the Islamic State group, read the statement. rudaw.net/mobile/english/kurdistan/160920141 Around half of Iraqs army is incapable of working with the US to recapture territory from Islamic State (IS) in western and northern Iraq, according to the top US military officer. General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that military teams that spent much of the summer in Iraq assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the security forces found that only 26 of 50 army brigades were capable partners for the US. news.sky/story/1337267/us-general-half-of-iraqi-army-not-capable Americas top military officer raised the specter of US troops in Iraq taking on a combat role to fight ISIS, a position that was quickly knocked down by the White House. General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that it was possible that US troops advising and assisting Iraqs military could be deployed to fight. To be clear, if we reach the point where I believe our advisers should accompany Iraqi troops on attacks against specific ISIL targets, I will recommend that to the President, Dempsey said during testimony before the committee. edition.cnn/2014/09/16/politics/isis-congress/ Leaders and diplomats from more than 30 countries have pledged to use whatever means necessary including military action to defeat the global threat of ISIS, after a crisis meeting in Paris.The emergency talks were held on Monday as France began reconnaissance flights over Iraq after announcing it was ready to join American air strikes and the prospect of Britain joining military action moved closer. Speaking after the conference, John Kerry, the US secretary of state, ruled out military coordination with Iran in any US-led campaign against Isis - a statement that chimed discordantly with an announcement made earlier on Monday by the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, claiming that Tehran had privately refused US requests for cooperation. theguardian/world/2014/sep/15/world-leaders-whatever-means-necessary-defeat-isis-threat ISIS fighters have captured villages and besieged a Kurdish city in northern Syria near the border with Turkey in a major assault that prompted a commander to appeal for military aid from other Kurds in the region. With the United States planning to expand military action against Isis from Iraq to Syria, a surveillance drone was spotted for the first time over nearby Isis-controlled territory in Aleppo province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks Syrias civil war, said. Isis fighters, using heavy weaponry including tanks, seized Kurdish villages near the city of Ayn al-Arab, known as Kobani. There are feats that ISIS terrorists are committing atrocities in these villages. theguardian/world/2014/sep/18/islamic-state-isis-militants-seize-kurdish-villages-northern-syria Crispian Cuss, a former British Army officer who has worked and lived in the Middle East, writes on Aljazeera that US willingness to delve back into Iraq stems from a number of overlapping motives. A sense of responsibility towards Iraq following the invasion of 2003, a belief that US foreign policy should be a force for good (while the US might have been slow to respond to the plight of the Yazidis virtually no-one else lifted a finger) and regional factors. There is a widespread belief that they have the capability to expand their Breaking the Borders campaign and sweep down into Jordan and across the rest of the Arabian Peninsula. While the US knows it cannot destroy ISIL by itself, equally the rest of the region knows they are dependent upon US leadership and firepower. Http://m.aljazeera/se/2014916537131650 On Monday, the president of Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani met with the Yazidi peshmerga field commander on Mount Sinjar, Qassim Shashou. Barzani acknowledged the peshmergas bravery and their efforts in defending Mount Sinjar. Despite constant pressure and attacks from Islamic State militants, the peshmerga have kept control of Mount Sinjar. basnews/en/News/Details/Barzani-Meets-With-Yazidi-Commander-on-Sinjar-Mountain-/34211 Kuwait has arrested several suspected members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group and is monitoring dozens more under its commitment to the US-led international coalition against the jihadists. The Gulf states secret service has arrested at least five suspected members of ISIS which has seized large swathes of Syria and Iraq. Three of the men in custody are Kuwaiti and two are so-called bidoons or stateless Arabs, the daily said. english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/09/18/Report-Kuwait-detains-ISIS-suspects.html Islamic State (IS) member Sherko Omer would now be a dead jihadist if he hadnt surrendered to the Peoples Protection Units (YPG) in northeast Syria earlier this year. In an interview with Your Middle East by Rozh Ahmed, Omer explains how he left his hometown to join the Syrian opposition and eventually became an IS member, what he witnessed and the reasons for which he risked his life to leave the extremist Islamic organisation. I wanted to leave first week in Al-Raqqa but I was a coward, scared of getting beheaded and did not know my way out. Unlike at the camp, IS jihadists acted like God in Al-Raqqa. They were rude, arrested and killed anybody for no real reason. yourmiddleeast/culture/exclusive-qa-with-former-islamic-state-member_26696 The US House of Representatives has approved President Barack Obamas plan to train and arm the moderate Syrian opposition taking on Islamic State. The vote passed by a large majority in the Republican-controlled House and is expected to be adopted in the Senate. The endorsement came after President Obama repeated that he would not be committing American combat troops to ground operations in Iraq. The US has undertaken 174 air strikes against IS in Iraq since mid-August. bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-29248955 Police have carried out anti-terrorism raids in Sydney sparked by intelligence reports that Islamist extremists were planning random killings in Australia. Prime Minister Tony Abbott said a senior Australian Islamic State militant had called for demonstration killings, reportedly including a public beheading. The raids, with at least 800 heavily armed officers, led to 15 arrests. One man has been charged with planning an attack. Prosecutors said it involved gruesomely killing someone. bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-29245611 A Saudi Arabian suicide bomber with the Islamic State group called on fellow Saudis to wage jihad and expressed hope that the group would expand into Saudi Arabia and expel the disbelievers from the Arabian Peninsula, the SITE monitoring service said. It said the man, identified as Abu Hajer al-Jazrawi, had carried out a suicide bombing in August in Syrias Raqqa. Addressing his countrymen in an apparent call for attacks not only on the ruling family and Westerners in Saudi Arabia, but also on the kingdoms senior Muslim clergy who have denounced Islamic State, Jazrawi said, It is time to say we will expel the disbelievers from the Arabian Peninsula. The fire begins with a small spark. That spark will ignite an explosive fire directed at the Saud Family and to their rabbis and priests. uk.reuters/article/2014/09/18/uk-syria-crisis-saudi-idUKKBN0HD0U220140918 Political Iraqs parliament failed to approve Prime Minister Haider al-Abadis candidates for the sensitive posts of defence and interior ministers in a vote on Tuesday, according to state television. Mithal al-Alusi, a prominent secular politician, said that the main Shiite alliance prevented the appointments. The men - Riad al-Ghareeb nominated for the post of interior minister and Jaber al-Jaberi as defence minister - did not win the needed majority vote, state television said. uk.reuters/article/2014/09/16/uk-iraq-crisis-parliament-idUKKBN0HB18920140916 In an interview with Rudaw, Fuad Hussein, chief of staff to President Barzani, said US airstrikes played an important role in preventing ISIS from advancing into Erbil. He said Washingtons swift response was key to winning global support in the war against the group. Dr Hussein expressed his dissatisfaction at Turkey for failing to live up to its pledges. Turkey consistently reiterated that if the security of the Kurdistan Region is threatened they would intervene. Well, our security was under threat, but still we did not receive any support from Turkey. rudaw.net/mobile/english/interview/16092014#sthash.Xavs5OZo.dpuf In an interview with AP, Iraqs new prime minister ruled out stationing US ground troops in his country, chiding the international community for inaction in Syria and lamenting the puzzling exclusion of neighboring Iran from the coalition being assembled to fight the Islamic State group. Haider al-Abadi praised the US aerial campaign targeting the militants, saying it has helped efforts to roll back the Sunni extremists. But he stressed that he sees no need for the US or other nations to send troops into Iraq to help fight the Islamic State. Instead, al-Abadi urged the international community to expand its campaign against the extremists in neighboring Syria, noting that militants coming under pressure in Iraq are retreating back into Syria. news.yahoo/ap-interview-iraq-premier-says-no-foreign-troops-134747998.html Writing in the Independent, Ranj Alaaldin says that the pledge from foreign ministers of 29 countries to remove Isis from Iraq using any means necessary, including military action, is a welcome development. However, it is only local and indigenous forces than can ultimately defeat the group. The Iraqi state must turn to the countrys Sunni Arabs and convince them to fight Isis. To sustain Iraq, Sunni actors must be given the opportunity to govern their own communities once Isis is contained, though not necessarily defeated. A managed but significant disconnect from Baghdad will allow for some breathing space in which a unified Iraqi identity emerges. independent.co.uk/voices/comment/bombs-cant-defeat-isis-but-iraqs-sunnis-can-9738385.html Economy British Expertise and the Middle East Association will host a political and security update on the Kurdistan Region on 9 October from 2.30pm at British Expertise, 10 Grosvenor Gardens, London, SW1W 0DH. The distinguished panel speakers includes, Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, the KRG High Representative to the UK, Sir William Patey from Control Risks and Lord Clement-Jones, Vice-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Kurdistan. britishexpertise.org/bx/pages/Event_view/989.php UK and Kurdistan In his regular column on goings on in the UK parliament for Rudaw, Gary Kent writes that early every day last week saw a major debate in the Commons on the emergency in Iraq and Syria, plus a packed meeting in Parliament attended by many Kurds from north, south, east and west with a distinguished range of speakers including former British Defence Secretary Liam Fox, and distinguished writer Patrick Cockburn. There was also a rally in central London organised by the Kurdish political parties in Britain. Discussion decamps to party conferences with KRG events over the next few weeks. This engagement is bound to increase and intensify following the despicable murder by the Islamic State of British aid worker David Haines. rudaw.net/english/opinion/140920141 Chatham House, the London-based think tank, is hosting a debate on titled Can Iraq Survive? on Thursday September 26 at 6pm. In recent months, the Islamic State has made sweeping military advances and Baghdad has been paralyzed by political infighting. This discussion will focus on the viability of Iraqi state itself and the ethnosectarian tensions that seem to be pulling the country toward a renewed civil war. Will the formation of a new government headed by Haider al-Abadi prevent the break-up of the country? What would an inclusive political solution look like - and will the Kurds want to be part of it? Can international involvement reverse the Islamic States gains on the battlefield? And how does Iraq fit in to the broader conflict in the Middle East? This event is held in association with The International New York Times. This event will be live streamed. The live stream will be made available at 18:00 BST on Thursday 25 September. chathamhouse.org/event/can-iraq-survive The Henry Jackson Society, a London-based think tank, has launched two papers aimed at informing government officials and policy advisors about the threat posed by the Islamic State (IS) and the policy measures needed to protect the UK against this risk. The first, a briefing entitled Understanding the Islamic State, gives an overview of the radical Islamic terror organisation. The briefing analyses the utility of air strikes against the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria, arguing that to be as effective as possible, they must be accompanied by a significant deployment of special forces in intelligence-gathering and advisory roles. The second, a policy paper entitled British Jihadists: Preventing Travel Abroad and Stopping Attacks at Home, provides a detailed examination of the threat posed by returning jihadists and offers practical policy instruments to meet the counter-terrorism objectives outlined by the Prime Minister earlier this month. The Kurdistan Regional Government UK Representation will be hosting debates on events in Kurdistan and Iraq at the Conservative and Labour party conferences this month. The debates, titled Kurdistan and Iraq: what next?, are open only to those registered to attend the party conferences. Speakers include Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, the KRG High Representative to the UK, Tobias Ellwood, Britains Middle East Minister, Ian Lucas, Shadow Middle East Minister, Mike Gapes MP and Nadhim Zahawi MP, both of whom are members of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 18:28:54 +0000
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