Kurds from Turkey, Syria Enter Iraq to Battle Islamic State

[Comrade Grumpy]

Source: McClatchy News Service

IRBIL, IRAQ — Kurdish forces pushed Tuesday to retake territory they lost over the weekend to the Islamic State in a major counteroffensive that will test the ability of the best-trained military force in Iraq to confront the radical Islamist group.

Thousands of Kurdish fighters from Turkey and Syria attacked Islamic State positions at Sinjar, one of three Iraqi cities that fell to the Islamic State over the weekend, while peshmerga militias loyal to Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government pressed to lift the Islamic State’s siege of the Mosul Dam, Iraq’s largest and an important source of electricity. The Islamists nearly overran the dam over the weekend.

U.S. officials said they were working with the Kurdistan Regional Government in Irbil and Iraq’s central government in Baghdad to counter the Islamic State’s advance. But it was unclear what material assistance, if any, the United States was lending to the fight.

<snip>

The entry of the Turkish and Syrian Kurds into the fight in Iraq marked a surprising new stage in the unfolding efforts to counter the Islamic State, and was a reminder that national borders have become insignificant in response to the Islamists, who themselves have proclaimed a caliphate in the areas of Iraq and Syria they control and are also fighting in Lebanon.

The Kurdish fighters identified themselves as “local self-defense” units, known by the Kurdish acronym YPG, which have been active in battling the Islamists in northern Syria for the past two years. But the YPG is generally considered an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party _ known as the PKK, its Kurdish initials _ a group that’s been fighting for Kurdish independence in Turkey for three decades and that the United States and the European Union consider a terrorist organization.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/08/06/235509/kurds-from-turkey-syria-enter.html#storylink=cpy

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/08/06/235509/kurds-from-turkey-syria-enter.html

---

This is a long article, and worth the read.

This ISIS thing is turning into a real shit storm.

Maybe Turkey and Iran need to get together and put an end to it. Militarily.

[azurnoir]

1. The US should be backing the Kurds here period

and perhaps some hope will come for them and the Kurdish Yezidis who are in dire straights

[Comrade Grumpy]

2. US policy is to back the government in Baghdad.

Some of the paragraphs I snipped have to do with the US saying any arms to the Kurds would have to go through Baghdad.

Turkey wouldn't be too happy about that, either.

This is a really clusterfuck, nobody can figure out an effective response to ISIS, and they're mass murdering prisoners, leaving heads on pikes, destroying shrines (at least they seem ecumenical in their destruction), and trying to kill off minority populations. These guys need to be snuffed out--now.

[joshcryer]

5. The US has been operating a secret base in Irbil for some time.

There is clandestine support for the Kurds going on. The US can't do it openly for fear of pissing off Turkey, but even then Turkey knows that we support the Kurds, Turkey just doesn't want it to help separatist type notions in their state.

Arms wouldn't have to "go through Baghdad." But there would never be recognition that we were the source.

For better or worse.

[azurnoir]

6. true enough about US policy however a couple of things

the first being it seems the Kurdish forces are doing better against ISIS than the near hapless Iraqi army and at this point the Kurds are going to take friends where they can find them, it should be kept in mind that the terms Iraqi Kurds Syrian Kurds Turkish Kurds are Western divisions not Kurdish who see themselves as one people and free Kurdistan is what they want now and always the US would be wise to get used to that idea, rather than mumble on about Baghdad

[politicman]

7. we need to wake up and see that this group is not that easy to beat as many think it is...

Come on, lets not let what we all wish to happen cloud the reality on the ground.

The reality is that ISIS is showing themselves to be more than capable of battling on multiple fronts and holding their own, even capturing more and more land as the days go on.

Nobody wants ISIS to gain more land and commit more horrors, but until we wake up to the true reality of the situation we wont find a proper response.

And the true reality is that ISIS has taken vast swathes of land in Iraq and Syria, they are currently in control of a town in Lebanon (a very strategic town that they know could ignite sectarian passions in Lebanon and gibe them still more recruits from another country), they have plenty of weapons and money and they have the tactical nous to accomplish what they set out to do.

Now when we can understand that, we can realize that Iraq or the Kurds or Syria or Lebanon or even help from Iran has been and will be unable to defeat them.

Whats needed is to face reality (not what we wish would happen) and then discuss methods for defeating them.

[bemildred]

9. Well said. nt

[Rhinodawg]

8. Condi, is that you ?

You keep saying someone has to do something.

Who do you think should stop them?

[Comrade Grumpy]

12. The local regional powers are Turkey and Iran. Maybe them, together?

I'm not advocating for US military intervention. But we should at least not be an obstacle for however does try to fix this.

[Rhinodawg]

11. kick for cg

[Hulk]

3. Good luck to them!

Something has to stop this ISIS. Just watched a short news bit on the Ottoman Empire prior to WWI. Very interesting. TY W for fookin' with the balance of power in the region. Anyone who thinks the blame for this mess falls on Obama is one deeply ignorant fool.

[Uncle Joe]

4. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Comrade Grumpy.

[bemildred]

10. This sentence:

The Kurdistan Regional Government’s representative in Washington said requested U.S. equipment intended to counter the sophisticated American weaponry that the Islamic State had captured in its June sweep of three Iraqi provinces had yet to arrive.

really gets to the heart of it.

[potone]

13. The Kurds seem to be the only people who have a realistic chance of defeating IS.

I normally am not in favor of arming groups in the Mideast since it usually comes back to bite us, but in this case I think it is worth the risk. The so-called Islamic State is no better than Al Qaeda, and may even be worse.

[rickyhall]

14. I think if wr take care of the Kurds

They could be very dependable allies..