Irak en crisis: yihadistas avanzan para tomar el control. +18 (IMAGENES FUERTES)

Islamic State's 'caliph' lauds Iraq rebellion
Video emerges of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Mosul mosque delivering sermon justifying fighting Baghdad government.
Last updated: 06 Jul 2014 07:18

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In the clip of the Friday sermon, Baghdadi says the 'establishment of a caliphate is an obligation'

The leader of the Islamic State group has made his first public appearance since proclaiming a caliphate, justifying the Sunni-led rebellion against the Iraqi government.

In a video posted on social media, the newly elected 'caliph', Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, delivers a Friday sermon and leads prayers in the grand mosque of Mosul.

Baghdadi, who delivers a 15-minute-long sermon wearing a black turban and robe, spoke on the blessings of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, and the legitimacy of fighting in the path of God against oppression.

Quoting verses from the Quran, Baghdadi spoke on the need of establishing Islamic law and how God had helped "jihadists" establish a so-called caliphate.

"The establishment of a caliphate is an obligation," he said. "The religion cannot be in place unless the sharia is established."

The Islamic State, which has swept across much of northern and western Iraq, has tapped into the grievances of the country's Sunni community with Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister, and his Shia-led government.

Baghdadi's purported descent from Prophet Muhammad's grandson was also mentioned in the video to comply with the requirement that a caliph be a member of the Prophet's Quraish tribe.

He also called on Muslims to obey him as long as he followed the "commands of God" and said he would not treat his subjects as other kings and rulers do.

"If you see that I am wrong, advise me and put me on the right track, and obey me as long as I obey God in you," he said.

Al Jazeera cannot independently verify the authenticity of the video.

Al Jazeera's Imran Khan, reporting from Baghdad, said it was a bold statement by Baghdadi, suggesting to the Iraqi government he was free to travel wherever he wanted in the territory of the self-declared caliphate.

Qaradawi's rejection

Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the prominent Sunni religious leader, on Saturday denounced Baghdadi's caliphate announcement as violating Islamic law.

"The declaration issued by the Islamic State is void under sharia and has dangerous consequences for the Sunnis in Iraq and for the revolt in Syria," he said. "We look forward to the coming caliphate."
Map: The Islamic State's (formerly ISIL) path through Iraq

Numerous figures from the Sunni community have dismissed the Islamic State's declaration of a caliphate.

Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, a Salafi leader from Jordan, called the group "deviant", while the pan-Islamist Hizb ut-Tahrir rejected the claims as "empty speech without substance".

Hizb ut-Tahrir said the Islamic State had no authority.

Since proclaiming the caliphate, the Islamic State has promised to sweep away state borders and redraw the map of the Middle East.

The group already dominates territory stretching from Aleppo in Syria to towns close to Baghdad.

Iraq government

Maliki, who has held the post since 2006, has rejected calls for him to step aside, with even some of his former allies blaming his failure to promote reconciliation for fuelling the discontent.

Iyad Allawi, the former Iraqi prime minister, on Saturday urged Maliki to give up his bid for a third term in power or risk the dismemberment of the country.

"If he stays on, I think there will be significant problems in the country and a lot of troubles. I believe that Iraq would go the route of dismemberment," he said.

Meanwhile, Maliki has removed the chief of the army's ground forces and the head of the federal police, according to Iraq's military spokesman.

Qassim al-Moussawi said Maliki retired Ali Ghaidan, the commander of the army's ground forces, and Mohsen al-Kaabi, the federal police chief.

Last month, Maliki sacked three generals who had been deployed in the north and ordered legal proceedings against them.

Another batch of Indians return from Iraq
At least 200 workers arrive in New Delhi while fate of 40 workers allegedly seized by rebels still remains unknown.
Last updated: 06 Jul 2014 10:16
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About 10,000 Indians work in Iraq mostly in areas unaffected by the fighting [EPA]

A group of 200 Indian workers, who were stranded in war-torn Iraq, have arrived in the capital, New Delhi, according to reports.

The fresh batch of Indian citizens arrived on Sunday a day after 46 nurses, who were reportedly abducted by the Islamic State group in Iraq, also arrived home in Kochi in southern state of Kerala, according to the Reuters news agency.

A group of 78 workers belonging to southern province of Andhra Pradesh also reached India on Saturday.

"We used to hear the firing of bullets 24 hours. The whole of Iraq is disturbed, the people there don't give importance to Indians," Upendra Singh, an Indian worker, said.

All the Indian nationals were carried from Baghdad on a special Air India flight.

On Saturday the Indian foreign ministrysaid that the momentum of return of its nationals was gathering pace as "600 more Indian nationals [are] returning home in next 48 hours".

Another Indian worker, Mohammed Alam, complained that the company they worked for did not provide them any help to return back to the country.

Alam said that the India embassy was helpful and provided them tickets ensuring their safe exit.

While many have returned to India, at least 40 Indian construction workers are still unaccounted for.

The group calling itself the Islamic State, previously known as ISIL, and other Sunni rebel groups have swept across much of northern and western Iraq accusing the Shia led government of sidelining the Sunni community.

About 10,000 Indians work in Iraq, mostly in areas unaffected by the fighting, but scores of them have returned to India since the rebels' offensive began last month.
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Agencies
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Iraq: A military solution to a political problem?
The unconditional nature of foreign military aid has contributed to Maliki's rigidity in solving the conflict in Iraq.
Last updated: 06 Jul 2014 09:05
Sharif Nashashibi
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Sharif Nashashibi is an award-winning journalist and analyst on Arab affairs. He is a regular contributor to Al Jazeera English, Al Arabiya News, The National, The Middle East magazine and the Middle East Eye.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki meeting with military commanders in Samarra, Iraq [AP]

The ongoing delay in forming a government that could alleviate the crisis in Iraq is largely due to foreign involvement - specifically, the considerable military help being given to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The necessity and urgency of halting or reversing the spread of the Islamic State group (formerly known as ISIL) is understandable. However, the unconditional nature of foreign military assistance has contributed to Maliki's rigidity in solving the conflict, even amid increasing dissent from his own Shia community, political coalition and government.

While the US is at odds with Russia, China and Iran over Syria, they are backing the same horse in Iraq. US Secretary of State John Kerry has promised Baghdad "intense and sustained" support. In this regard, US President Barack Obama has said he is considering "all options". There are several hundred US military personnel coordinating with the Iraqi army.

Iran has sent 2,000 advance troops to its neighbour, as well as the head of its elite Quds Force. Iranian troops have fought alongside the Iraqi army in Tikrit. Tehran is reportedly directing surveillance drones over the country, and supplying Iraqi forces with tonnes of military equipment and other supplies.

Russia has pledged "complete support" for the Iraqi government "to speedily liberate the territory of the republic from terrorists". Moscow added that it "will not remain passive to the attempts by some groups to spread terrorism in the region". Baghdad has bought more than a dozen Sukhoi warplanes from Russia, and has already received the first batch.

China has said it is "willing to give whatever help it is able to", adding that "for a long time, China has been giving Iraq a large amount of all sorts of aid".

Fundamental reforms

While there have been external and internal calls for fundamental reforms and a unity government - with or without Maliki - military backing is not being conditioned on the prime minister heeding such calls. The US is particularly guilty of this, being a vocal advocate of a more inclusive government, while being a pivotal backer of the current dysfunctional administration.

A consequence of this is Maliki's refusal to step down, compromise, or accept that he has exacerbated Sunni Arab alienation - the cause of the current conflict. He has rejected a national unity government, and said on July 4 that he will "never give up" on his bid for a third term in office.

Maliki has cracked down on opposition media, and described the Sunni revolt as a 'conspiracy' - a favourite excuse of Arab strongmen. He has vowed to teach militants a 'lesson', offered to arm civilians willing to fight them, asked the US to launch air strikes, and is being bolstered by Shia militias. Basically, Maliki is looking for a military solution to a political problem.

Maliki has cracked down on opposition media, and described the Sunni revolt as a "conspiracy" - a favourite excuse of Arab strongmen. He has vowed to teach the militants a "lesson", offered to arm civilians willing to fight them, asked the US to launch air strikes, and is being bolstered by Shia militias. Basically, Maliki is looking for a military solution to a political problem.

Without unconditional backing from his principal foreign allies, it is far more likely that he would heed internal calls for him to step aside. Such calls are not just coming from Iraq's Sunni Arab community.

The head of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Nechirvan Barzani, has said a solution would require Maliki to step down, and for US support for Iraq to be contingent on that.

"There is no trust between Maliki and the Kurds," Barzani said, adding that the crisis is "the result of the wrong policy in Baghdad vis-a-vis Sunni areas. It's about the Sunni community feeling neglected".

Sunni Arabs and Kurds walked out of the first session of Iraq's new parliament on July 1 after Shia Muslims failed to name a prime minister. Dissenters within Maliki's own government include Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlak, who told CNN that Maliki has "isolated" Sunnis from decision-making and power-sharing.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's top Shia cleric, has called for "a new effective government that has broad national support, avoiding past mistakes and opening new horizons towards a better future for all Iraqis". Although Sistani did not clarify whether he thought Maliki should have a role in such a government, his call was a blow to the prime minister.

Another powerful Shia cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr - a former ally of Maliki - predicted in January 2013 that there would be an "Iraqi Spring", when he came out in support of Sunni demonstrations against the prime minister's discriminatory policies.

Critical period

In February, Sadr described Maliki as a "tyrant" and "dictator", accusing his "corrupt" government of "silencing, deporting and arresting" opponents, and of labelling any dissenters as "terrorists". In April, he accused the prime minister of wanting to "marginalise the Sunnis".

Even members of Maliki's own State of Law coalition concede that he may need to step down.

"Everything is on the table," a senior member told Reuters. If Sunnis and Kurds "insist they will only go forward if Maliki is not prime minister, we are ready to discuss it".

Another member confirmed that there was talk within the coalition of replacing him.

Next week could be critical to finding a possible solution to the crisis, as parliament is due to meet again to try to piece together a broadly inclusive and acceptable government. In the meantime, Saudi Arabia - which holds sway over Iraq's Sunni Arabs - has urged them to join a unity government.

Also, former Iraqi Parliament Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi, an outspoken Sunni opponent of Maliki, has said he will not nominate himself for another term to facilitate Shia political parties to find a replacement prime minister.

Given widespread Iraqi opposition to a Maliki role in the next government, and violence being fuelled by political uncertainty and discontent, now is the time for countries backing the Iraqi state to make clear that their continued support will depend on the prime minister putting the national interest above his own. If they do not, they are only prolonging a conflict they claim to want to end.

Sharif Nashashibi is an award-winning journalist and analyst on Arab affairs. He is a regular contributor to Al Jazeera English, Al Arabiya News, The National, The Middle East magazine and the Middle East Eye.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
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Al Jazeera
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Muslim leaders reject Baghdadi's caliphate
Prominent Muslim leaders rebuke the Islamic State group's self-proclaimed caliphate, calling it 'void' and 'deviant'.
Shafik Mandhai Last updated: 07 Jul 2014 12:12
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Sunni leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi said the proclaimed caliphate was 'void' according to Islamic law [Reuters]

Muslim scholars and movements from across the Sunni Islamic spectrum have rejected the caliphate declared by the Islamic State group, with the fighters receiving scathing criticism from both mainstream religious leaders, and those associated with their former allies, al-Qaeda.

Assem Barqawi, also known as Abu Mohamed al-Maqdesi, who was released from a Jordanian prison in June after serving a sentence for recruiting volunteers to fight in Afghanistan, called fighters loyal to the Islamic State group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, "deviant".

Maqdesi, a supporter of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, hit out at the Islamic State group for its brutal methods. "Is this caliphate a sanctuary for the vulnerable and a refuge for all Muslims, or a sword hanging over those Muslims who disagree with them," Maqdesi said.

In rejecting the self-proclaimed caliphate, Maqdesi, a Salafi, has found himself on the same side as Sufi leaders, such as the Syrian Muhammad al-Yacoubi.

In a post on his Twitter account, the Syrian exile similarly described the followers of the group, formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), as "deviators".

"[The] Khilafah state (ISIL) declared is illegitimate," Yacoubi said. Adding that supporting it is "haram", or forbidden.

The view was echoed by Qatar-based Egyptian religious leader, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who said the declaration was "void" according to Islamic law.

"A group simply announcing a caliphate, is not enough to establish a caliphate," Qaradawi said in an open letter published on the website for the International Union of Muslim Scholars, which he heads.

There was similar admonishment from the pan-Islamic political party Hizb ut-Tahrir, which believes it is a religious obligation for Muslims to work towards establishing a caliphate.

"The issue of the Khilafah is too great for its image to be distorted or for its reality to be changed merely by an announcement here or an announcement there," the group said in a statement on its website.

Speaking during Friday prayers, Rachid Ghannouchi, the founder of the Ennahda Party, Tunisia's main Islamist party, added to the chorus of criticism, calling the declaration of a caliphate by followers of Baghdadi a "reckless" act, which gave a "deceptive message".

"Nations do not arise in this ridiculous way," he told his followers.

RELATED: Opinion - Baghdadi's misconstrued caliphate

Farid Senzai, a professor of Middle East politics at Santa Clara University, told Al Jazeera many Muslim groups felt the Islamic State group was hurting their cause.

"The Baghdadi caliphate is rejected by most mainstream Islamists because they feel it damages their cause to establish an Islamic system through peaceful means," Senzai said.

He added the fighters were further discredited by their "harsh implementation" of Islamic law.

According to Senzai, that rejection was shared among ordinary believers.

"Many Muslims would support a caliphate as an idea but not support ISIL because of its violent methodology," he said.

Despite its sizeable list of critics, the disapproval is unlikely to have a big effect on Baghdadi’s followers.

"They do not care about traditional and mainstream scholars, they have their own interpretation which they continue to insist gives them legitimacy," Senzai said.

Follow Shafik Mandhai on Twitter: @shafzibit

Iraq analysing authenticity of Baghdadi video
Security services are verifying whether man seen sermonising in video was indeed the head of Islamic State group.
Last updated: 07 Jul 2014 04:27
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The 21-minute video was filmed at the Great Mosque in Mosul [Al Jazeera]

Iraqi officials are investigating the authenticity of a video purportedly showing the leader of the Islamic State group which has seized large areas of the country delivering a sermon, authorities have said.

Iraqi military spokesman Qassim al-Moussawi on Sunday said the country's security services were still analysing the video to verify whether the speaker was indeed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the head of the group formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) which has now rebranded itself as the Islamic State.

Moussawi said that the government would "announce the details once they are available".
Check out our complete coverage of the crisis in Iraq

They were trying to determine if the 21-minute video said to show Baghdadi filmed on Friday at the Great Mosque in the northern city of Mosul was real.

The footage was released on at least two websites known to be used by the organisation and bore the logo of its media arm.

The video came five days after Baghdadi's group declared the establishment of an Islamic state, or caliphate, in the territories it had seized in Iraq and Syria.

The group proclaimed Baghdadi the leader of its state and demanded that all Muslims pledge allegiance to him.

Initial analysis

Wearing black robes and a black turban, the man in the video said to be Baghdadi urged his followers to follow him in the war against his enemies.

A senior Iraqi intelligence official told AP on Saturday that an initial analysis indicated that the man in the video was indeed Baghdadi.

Over the past month, Baghdadi's fighters have overrun much of northern and western Iraq, adding to the territory they already control in neighbouring Syria.

One of the main battlefronts now is the country's largest oil refinery near Beiji, some 250km north of Baghdad, where government forces are besieged by Islamic State group fighters.

The military spokesman said that security forces repelled an overnight attack on the facility, killing about 20 fighters and damaging eight vehicles.
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AP
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Middle East
Iraq parliament delays session until August
Postponement announced despite pressure to form quickly new government that can confront Sunni-led rebellion's advance.
Last updated: 07 Jul 2014 23:34


Iraq's newly elected parliament has postponed its next session until mid-August, according to state television, amid political deadlock over choosing a new prime minister.

Parliament met last Tuesday for the first time since its election in April and had planned to meet again this Tuesday.

Pressure is running high to quickly form a new government that can confront a Sunni-led rebellion that has overrun parts of western and northern Iraq.
Check out our complete coverage of the crisis in Iraq

The parliament said in a statement on Monday that following "discussions with the heads of the blocs and concerned parties", it was decided that "the next session will be held instead on August 12".

It expressed hope that "another chance will be available for more dialogue and discussions to arrange that meeting".

Under an informal system that took root after the 2003 US-led invasion that deposed Saddam Hussein, the prime minister's job goes to a Shia, the president's post to a Kurd and the speaker of parliament's chair to a Sunni.

The main point of contention right now is the post of prime minister, which holds most of the power in Iraq.

Last week's session, the first since a May election, broke up when Sunnis and Kurds walked out after Shias failed to name a prime minister to replace Nouri al-Maliki.

Within hours of the announcement of the parliament session's postponement, a senior Iraqi general was killed in fighting with Sunni rebels near Baghdad on Monday.

Major General Negm Abdullah Ali, commander of the army's sixth division responsible for defending part of Baghdad, was killed just 16 km northwest of the capital.

There was also violence in Baghdad's Shia neighbourhood of Kadhimiyah. A suicide bomber drove a vehicle packed with explosives into a checkpoint, killing five policemen and three civilians, according to a police official.

The official said 16 people were wounded besides the fatalities. A medic confirmed to Associated Press news agency the casualty figures.

Barrel-bombing proof

Iraq's military has been involved in a difficult campaign since mid-June against the Sunni-led rebellion in the north and the west led by the Islamic State group.

The rebels had established footholds in Fallujah and several other Iraqi cities months before a June 11 offensive that saw them seize Mosul and Tikrit.

Now Al Jazeera has obtained exclusive footage showing the apparent aftermath of a barrel bombing in the rebel-held city of Fallujah.
Map: The Islamic State's (formerly ISIL) path through Iraq

The city's hospital said at least nine people were injured in the air raids overnight on Sunday, including three children.

Iraqi security services were understood to have been targeting rebel strongholds in the neighbourhoods of Jolan, al-Andalus, al-Jubayl and al-Shuhadaa.

Barrel bombs are crudely constructed explosive device, made up of oil drums filled with scrap metal and high explosive.

They have been used extensively by government forces in neighbouring Syria, and have been banned under international conventions because of their indiscriminate nature.

Al Jazeera's Imran Khan, reporting from Baghdad, said Iraqi military officials denied using the explosives.

"We do not use there weapons. We are a professional army," Saad Maan, a military spokesman, said.

The Iraqi military was also accused of using the bombs in May, when local journalists told Al Jazeera the devices had been dropped on "mosques, houses and markets".

The Iraqi government rejected the charge that but experts and witnesses challenged the denial.

Middle East
Iraq's Sunni tribal leaders assert presence
Leaders say they have put aside differences with the Islamic State group to focus on removing Iraq's government.
Last updated: 08 Jul 2014 11:57
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Sunni tribal leaders have been meeting in the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region, Erbil, to pledge their support for the their community's month-long rebellion against the Iraqi government.

The men said Sunni politicians in parliament do not represent them, and while they have differences with the Islamic State group, they would work to them until they take Baghdad.

Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr reports from Erbil

Dozens of blindfolded bodies found in Iraq
Officials say 53 bodies were left in the mainly Shia village of Khamissiya, south of Baghdad.
Last updated: 09 Jul 2014 13:44
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Iraqi security forces have found 53 corpses, blindfolded and handcuffed, in a town south of Baghdad.

Officials said that the bodies had been left in the mainly Shia Muslim village of Khamissiya early on Wednesday, about 25km southeast of the city of Hilla, near the main highway running from the capital to the southern provinces.

The head of the provincial council, the local police and the governor's office all confirmed the discovery of the bodies, but had no immediate information on the identity of the dead, who appeared to have been killed execution style.

Sunni fighters seized control of large parts of northern and western Iraq last month, sweeping towards Baghdad in the most serious challenge to the Shia-led government of Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, since the withdrawal of US forces in 2011.

Fierce fighting between the rebels and the army, backed by Shia armed groups, has raised fears of a return to the sectarian bloodshed which peaked in Iraq in 2006 and 2007.

Al Jazeera's Imran Khan, reporting from Baghdad, said that the incident could ignite more fears of sectarian violence.

"A lot of people are very nervous," he said. "What authorities are worried about now are revenge attacks."

Sunni fighters have been carrying out attacks around the southern rim of Baghdad since the spring.

In response, Shia militias have been active in the rural districts of Baghdad, abducting Sunnis they suspected of terrorism, many of whom later turn up dead.

According to medical officials, the number of unidentified bodies found around Baghdad has risen steadily since the beginning of the year.

Maliki calls Erbil a 'terror base'

Meanwhile, Maliki on Wednesday said the Kurdish-controlled city of Erbil was becoming an operations base for the Islamic State group that has seized areas of northern and western Iraq.

"We will never be silent about Erbil becoming a base for the operations of the Islamic State and Baathists and al-Qaeda and the terrorists," Maliki said in his weekly televised address.

Al Jazeera's Khan said that the statement was "out of the blue" and unexpected.

Maliki's relationship with Massoud Barzani, the Kurdish president, has deteriorated amid the sectarian fighting that has threatened to split the country.

Barzani last week asked the parliament of the autonomous Kurdish region to plan a referendum on Kurdish independence, signalling his impatience with Baghdad.

Maliki, meanwhile, has accused the Kurds of exploiting the crisis to push for statehood.
Source:
Al Jazeera and agencies

An independent Kurdistan? Yes, but not so fast
Without Turkey's support, an independent 'Kurdistan' cannot survive in a region where people traditionally bear grudges.
Last updated: 09 Jul 2014 09:11
Firas Al-Atraqchi

Firas Al-Atraqchi

Firas Al-Atraqchi is an Iraqi political analyst and an associate professor of practice at the Journalism and Mass Communication department at the American University of Cairo.
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Turkey has for decades vehemently opposed an independent Kurdistan in the region, writes Atraqchi [AFP]

Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) President Massoud Barzani has asked parliament to form an electoral committee that would establish the groundwork for a referendum on independence from Iraq.

Given that the Kurdish Peshmerga forces have already seized the contested multi-ethnic and oil-rich city of Kirkuk, following the fall of Iraq's north to Sunni Islamist forces, and given that a referendum on independence was passed with a 98.8 percent approval in 2005, the question is: Why are the Kurds going through the motions, and not outwardly announcing a break from Iraq?

The reason is that despite coming desperately close to realising their century-old nationalistic aspirations, the Kurds are more judicious than their southern Arab Shia and Sunni neighbours.

Rather than wave goodbye to a weakened and politically divided Baghdad now, Barzani is prolonging the process of secession because of two glaring facts. The first is that he is fully aware that Kurdish independence is inevitable.

The second is that an immediate break-up of Iraq would exacerbate the current crises in the Middle East, leading to further destabilisation of a number of countries - Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, etc - and ultimately, a blowback for an independent Kurdistan.

Hostile region

While there has been much media fanfare about the possibility of Kurdish independence recently, one critical caveat has not been sufficiently examined - how an independent Kurdistan will survive in a very hostile region.

To begin with, this new state would have to immediately confront the threat posed by the Islamic State group, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The Kurds have watched as it tore through Syria by giving no quarter to enemies - whether those in government forces or rival Islamist militia - and then proceeded to rout the US-funded and trained Iraq army.

The Islamic State has made no serious move against the Kurds, but it is unclear how they would react if the Kurdish region does break away. According to some reports, the Islamic State has already recruited hundreds of young Kurdish fighters, complicating the tense situation.

An independent Kurdistan could also feel the wrath of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his Shia Arab allies. In previous years, the KRG and Baghdad have feuded over oil export rights, compensation for oil production and more significantly, territorial dominion.

Kirkuk is no small cake, and the Arabs - this issue transcends Maliki and his allies - are not likely to take the loss easily. There have been in recent years, nearly deadly standoffs between the Iraqi army and the Peshmerga over demarcating the Kurdish autonomous region. The KRG has wanted to integrate the Peshmerga into the regimented Iraqi military, but Baghdad has repeatedly resisted. With the Iraqi army disorganised and ill-prepared, this may now be a moot point.

To the north and east, a new "Kurdistan" would have to deal with Iran which has played a significant role in the Iraqi political landscape. It is unlikely that Tehran would immediately sign up to Kurdish independence; Iran would not like to see the Baghdad government, which currently serves as a vital supply conduit to Iran's long-time ally and proxy Damascus, so weakened.

With one-fifth of the country subtracted from Tehran's grip and likely to be influenced by the US and Israeli administrations, the chains holding Lebanon and Syria to Iraq and Iran could also be weakened. However, given Iran's current nuclear talks with P5 + 1, and Tehran's desire to remove the sanctions, the Islamic government could be pressured to sign on the dotted line.

But geopolitical considerations remain. Iran's sizable minority Kurds could find inspiration in their Iraqi counterparts and press Tehran to acknowledge their nationalistic aspirations.

The most crucial question, however, is whether Turkey - once a fierce opponent to Kurdish independence - will now become its greatest enabler.

Turkey, kingmaker?

Turkey has also manoeuvred to maintain its economic, political and social foothold in northern Iraq. And this is where the Kurdish question comes to the fore. The Kurds have, in the past decade, emerged as erstwhile allies and their strengthened ties with Ankara could yet reap the greatest reward of all - statehood.

Turkey has for decades not only vehemently opposed an independent Kurdistan in the region, but has also waged a brutal war against its own Kurdish minority in the southeast.

The US invasion and occupation of Iraq, however, and the subsequent decentralisation of authority in Baghdad, altered the dynamic of Kurdish-Turkish relations.

After a brief war of words between Barzani and Turkish officials over alleged support and harbouring of Ankara's nemesis, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the KRG and Turkey quickly found middle ground.

Following the geopolitical manifesto of Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Ankara has in the past decade, opened four consulates - in Baghdad, Basra, Erbil and Mosul. No other country has as much diplomatic representation in Iraq.

Turkey has also walked a tightrope in trying to restore once-frayed ties with Baghdad, while expanding its economic influence with the KRG. There are lucrative ties to be made on both sides; while Turkey is the Kurds' largest trading partner and development financier - as of 2012, there were more than 1,000 Turkish companies working in the KRG region - it also views Baghdad as a growing market for trade, to the order of tens of billions of dollars a year.

In the past five years, Turkey's ruling AKP has succeeded in using diplomatic and political means to end the decades-old conflict with its Kurdish minority. Recently, the Turkish prime minister asked parliament to debate a new law that would enable his government to formally begin talks with the outlawed PKK. This would have been unheard of just a decade ago, but the debacle in Syria has also contributed in creating a domino effect of shifting alliances and undercurrents so dramatic that age-old prejudices have fallen to the wayside in the face of new geopolitical realities.

The manner and pace in which the Islamic State seized and consolidated its power in Iraq has also tipped the balance of power in the country; Balkanisation is now a real possibility.

The Turks may be more inclined to accept - let's hold off on using the phrase "support" for now - Kurdish independence as a fait accompli if Baghdad continues to appear unable to assert its authority. But even if they were to see that in their best interest, the Turks must tread carefully.

Recently, Ankara reiterated its support for a unified Iraq just one day after a senior Turkish official appeared to voice acceptance of an independent "Kurdistan".

This should not be viewed as confusion but as a testing of the waters. Ankara is worried about angering Baghdad, which has complained numerous times about the Turks' rapprochement with the Kurds and their alleged role in a pipeline which would carry oil from the fields near Kirkuk via Turkey to Europe and the rest of the world.

Turkish strategists are also carefully scrutinising the situation in Iraq; if Maliki will step aside to allow some semblance of a national unity government to emerge, and whether Baghdad will be able to overcome its political bickering and hold the rest of the country together.

As soon as Baghdad's authority becomes untenable, Turkey will move closer to publicly accepting Kurdish nationalistic aspirations.

If Erdogan gets his way with the parliament, he will have validated his policies in dealing with the PKK and automatically boost his popularity with the Turkish Kurds. This is particularly important to the once-embattled prime minister who is running for president in an upcoming election.

Ultimately, the KRG is the greatest beneficiary of the current upheaval in Iraq and Syria, and the political momentum in Turkey.

But to survive in a region where people traditionally bear grudges, an independent Kurdistan will not come about, or survive, without a significant and public policy change in Ankara. As Iraq continues to come undone, the Kurds and the Turks may come to realise that they desperately need each other.

Saudi Arabia: Don't blame it all on the Islamic State
Saudis see Iran's meddling and unresolved Syrian crisis as main contributors to the turmoil in Iraq.
Last updated: 09 Jul 2014 11:42
Mansour Almarzoqi Albogami

Mansour Almarzoqi Albogami
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Mansour Almarzoqi Albogami is an academic and researcher on Saudi politics at Sciences Po de Lyon, France.
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Iraq's multi-ethnic, multi-religious society cannot rely on a goverment that exclusively represents the interests of one component over all others, writes Albogami [AFP]

Pundits continue to speculate about the role Saudi Arabia plays in the escalating crisis in Iraq. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki seeks the assistance of his main benefactors, Iran and the US, to battle against the Sunni rebellion. But in the decision-making circles of Saudi Arabia, the consensus is that the problem is rooted in the practice of allowing neighbouring Iran to wield inordinate influence in forming a government in Baghdad.

For Saudi Arabia, the turmoil in both Iraq and Syria is viewed from the same prism. Riyadh opposes any attempts at lumping all actors in Iraq in a single basket, in this case, the Islamic State group, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

The problem, as per the Saudi view, originates from the fact that any effort to form an Iraqi government must be negotiated in Tehran, rather than Baghdad. For Iran to be able to maintain influence over Baghdad - and have all Iraqi politicians undertake a political pilgrimage to Tehran - it must continue to rely on theologically extremist recruitment techniques as well as some Shia actors and Shia militias.

The sense of sectarian identity must be very high in order for this Iranian strategy to work. Otherwise, why would Shia Muslims exclusively rally around Shia actors and militias? In order to maintain this strong sense of identity, a global atmosphere of conflict and instability must be prevalent. Thus, crises are the source of Iranian diplomatic capital.

Fragmented Iraq

Saudi Arabia's position has never wavered in this regard. What Iraq needs is the formation of a real participatory government, which includes all Iraqis irrespective of sect or ethnicity.

Iraq's multi-ethnic, multi-religious society cannot rely on a goverment that exclusively represents the interests of one component over all others. This results in pushing the country's marginalised communities further back to their own religious and ethnic identities. The end result is a fragmented Iraq, with a fragile illusion of a political process, waiting for the tiniest spark to explode.

Inside Story - 'Islamic caliphate': Blessing or threat?

What has aggravated matters is the international community's inaction in Syria. This apathetic approach has left legitimate Syrian rebels exposed and defenceless in the face of extremism.

Over time, this extremism will grow, metastasise and have a spillover effect, as it did in Iraq. Saudi Arabia has long argued that the Free Syrian Army or the FSA was capable of defending the Syrian people against the regime's mass bombardments if only they were given adequate assistance and support.

The extremist forces maintain that Western policies - as well as Iran's sectarian policies - seek to establish a new Sykes-Picot agreement, with the West on one side of the drafting table, and the Iranians on the other, negotiating the division of Syria and Iraq once again. The worsening situation in Syria and Iraq makes it hard to refute such claims.

An empowered FSA would discredit such discourse. It would offer the war-weary Syrian people a safe alternative to bombardment by the regime or an extremist take over.

Many actors, one basket?

Moreover, Saudi Arabia has in the past expressed the view that it is unhelpful to lump all actors in the Iraqi crisis in one basket. As Saudi Prince Turki bin Faisal al-Saud, former head of Saudi intelligence, told CNN on July 2: "The problem is more than [Islamic State group]."

Riyadh has repeatedly expressed frustration over the West's inability to fully comprehend the region. For Saudi Arabia, superficial, ready-made analyses and canned solutions only aggravate the problem.
Check out our complete coverage of the crisis in Iraq

Ever since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, residual Baath party members have been active in resisting the invaders. Despite some media reports, there has been little evidence that the Baath party, under the leadership of the ex-vice president of the old regime, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, has made any alliance with other resistance groups. However, there are indications that the Baath party is at least coordinating its activities with other actors in the current uprising.

The Naqshbandi army, led by Douri, has called upon the Iraqi people "to be unified, to embrace their valiant resistance, and to hold their national, nationalist, and Islamic forces so as to sweep this political process".

Moreover, for the past 13 months, Sunni tribes have been revolting against the sectarian policies of the Iranian-backed prime minister. Indeed, Sunni tribal leaders have been meeting in the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region, Erbil, to pledge their commitment to support the Sunni uprising.

Let us examine the obvious evidence. First, 20,000 Islamic State members cannot realistically capture a territory larger than the country of Jordan in a matter of days. Second, it is clear that professional military tactics have been used, as opposed to conventional guerrilla tactics. Third, the language of the rebels' statements implies the involvement of several actors in the uprising. One statement, for example, which came out after the fall of Mosul, insisted on the protection of churches as well as the inclusion of those who have worked in Maliki's police forces. Also, it insisted on an active role for tribal leaders. This is not how the Islamic State would be expected to write a statement.

Reducing the crisis to the Islamic State group is to ignore the policies of the past eight years that Maliki has pursued, as well as the socio-economic factors that have fuelled the current situation.

Another Battle of Karbala?

There is no doubt that Maliki - as well as Iran - will contrive to pin the current crisis entirely on the Islamic State group. On the one hand, such a position amplifies the global atmosphere of conflict and instability, which escalates the identity divide. As such, Maliki rallies all Shia Muslims around him, and Iran continues to take advantage of the wide pool for recruitment. This also explains why the Iraqi prime minister insists in his speeches that this war is akin to the seventh century war between Hussein ibn Ali, Prophet Mohammed's grandson and Yazid I, the Umayyad caliph. The decisive showdown has a central place in Shia Muslim history.

It also explains why the Secretary General of the Council of Guardians in Iran, Mohsen Rezaie told CNN Arabic that he was calling on Shia Muslims to mobilise for another Battle of Karbala.

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah ibn Abdilaziz denounced the Islamic State group as a terrorist organisation last month, and the group is said to pose a security threat to Saudi Arabia. But there is no indication that Saudi Arabia will get involved militarily in Iraq. It will limit its efforts to encouraging all parties to sit together and form a unity government, which can represent the interests of all Iraqis, thus isolating the Islamic State group from the aggrieved as well as marginalised components of Iraqi society.

However, this current crisis benefits Saudi Arabia in two ways. First, it depletes Iranian capital as well as that of its allies. Second, resolving the crisis requires Iran to give up part of its influence over President Bashar al-Assad in Syria and Maliki in Iraq. In this respect, resolving the current situation must be done within a comprehensive framework, which would include both Syria and Iraq.

Next, a unity government, or a government that represents the interests of all Iraqis, will inevitably require Maliki's departure, the reduction of Iranian influence in Iraq, as well as combating extremism in Syria. That means strengthening the FSA, and as a consequence, weakening the regime of Assad, Iran's man in Damascus.

Indeed, Iran's influence in the region which has been stable and on the offensive for the past three decades, is now on the defensive. It is fighting for the survival of its allies in the region. How Saudi Arabia might react to this challenge is yet to be seen.

The myth of the caliphate and the Islamic State
The most powerful weapon against extremism is the knowledge that Islamic empires were not sustained by armies alone.
Last updated: 10 Jul 2014 11:48
Afzal Ashraf

Afzal Ashraf

Afzal Ashraf is a Consultant fellow at Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies (RUSI) and served in the UK Armed Forces. He was involved developing a counterinsurgency strategy and in the Policing and the Justice sector in Iraq.
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The new caliph presents Muslims with a choice to accept him or be assumed apostate [EPA]

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's declaration of an Islamic State and caliphate is potentially good news for patriotic Iraqis, the international community, and the majority of Muslims. It is bad news for al-Qaeda, whose credibility may be irreversibly damaged. The way the world responds to the caliphate also provides an opportunity to destroy the political myths that sustain and attract recruits to extremist ideologies.

The new caliph presents Muslims with a choice to accept him or be assumed apostate and so, liable to be killed. This has precedence in medieval Europe, rather than in Muslim history. A medieval Christian king would declare cuius regio, eius et religio or to whom belongs the realm also belongs the religion, requiring subjects to accept his religion, leave or be killed.

Ibrahim's (as the new caliph wants to be known) declaration nullifies his group's current and any future alliances. The Sunni tribesmen and ex-Baathists supporting the Islamic State group, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, in the insurgency now, have to either succumb to the caliph's authority or risk being killed.

No doubt some will bow to the caliphate. Hot heads from across the world will be drawn to this latest craze in theo-pop boy bands. But most will wretch at the idea of complete religious and political submission to a man whose authority rests solely on his ability to mastermind an armed rebellion. So, Ibrahim's new caliphate came into effect with an implicit declaration of war against all.

Cynical exploitation

That the group has chosen to become known as the Islamic State (IS) rather than any of its previous titles involving the word "Iraq", betrays its cynical exploitation of national politics for its own objectives. The nationalist ex-Baathists and patriotic tribesmen will likely feel aggrieved by the group's hijacking of their cause for a wider pan-Islamist agenda. For some, the betrayal will need avenging through violence.

For the Shia, the Kurds and the Christians, the Islamic State's declaration means that they will not have a voice within its territory. These extremists have a tradition of destroying any shrine, grave or relic that could be used for worship by any religion, including Islam, which doesn't follow their exclusive creed. The Kurds stand to lose their secular and accommodating culture.
Counting the cost - Iraq : The money behind the rebellion

By threatening the national boundaries, beliefs and identities of the people in the region, the caliphate could unite otherwise disparate agendas within Iraq. While last week some Kurds might have considered the Islamic State a catalyst for their dream of an independent Kurdistan, now they will see the group as a threat to their nation.

Europe, the US and Russia were already concerned about the future dangers posed by the Islamic State. Their concerns will have been heightened by Ibrahim's self-appointed papacy.

So within the constraints of doing business with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, with each other and with Iran and the other players in Iraq, they will wish to increase their contribution to fight against this caliphate project, providing an opportunity for Iraqis and regional powers to work for a common purpose.

No matter what happens to the caliphate, al-Qaeda stands to suffer, possibly irrecoverably. Al-Qaeda's most creative contribution to jihadist ideology was to focus on fighting the faraway enemy, the West, rather than the near enemy, the "apostate" Muslim regimes. However, 9/11 and other inspired attacks in Europe failed to achieve their aim of making the West abandon its support of most Muslim regimes.

Instead, those attacks had the opposite effect. Western forces occupied more Muslim lands with more Muslims killed and with a greater loss of wealth and dignity. US counterterrorism operations resulted in Osama bin Laden and all but one of his deputies being killed over the last decade. The capability of al-Qaeda to plan and conduct terrorism was castrated and its prodigious propaganda output hugely constrained in recent years. The US reduced the organisation from being the number one global threat to a paper tiger.

The fact that the Islamic State group had sought al-Qaeda recognition but fought other al-Qaeda groups in Syria, refused to listen to its leader's pleas to refrain, and was eventually expelled, is highly significant. It proves that al-Qaeda's ideology is contradictory. On the one hand, it misappropriates theology to define Islam primarily through the lens of participation in a violent jihad. This implicitly suggests that compromise was a sin in the religion and the cause of Islamic decline.

On the other hand, it has repeatedly tried to restrain its affiliates and associates from using too much violence and from making too many enemies, for reasons of political pragmatism. This is a conundrum that many extremists, by definition, cannot resolve.

Too many enemies

Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri progressively lost authority because of his inability or unwillingness to participate in violent action for over a decade. Unsurprisingly, the Islamic State group ignored his instructions to behave in Syria. The group's apparent success highlights al-Qaeda's failures. The Islamic State group's unattractive style of jihad points to the ultimate conclusion of al-Qaeda's ideology - one that is so bloodthirsty, it kills its own.

If the international community, regional powers, and what remains of Iraq unite to fight the caliphate, then its tenure will certainly be short-lived. But for success to be sustained, it is important to not just defeat the threat, but also to discredit the motivating ideology.

Having made extravagant promises of capturing Baghdad and uniting a swathe of land from India to Spain, halting Caliph Ibrahim's ambitions should send a powerful message to all extremists with theo-political ambitions: as with al-Qaeda, such strategies are doomed to failure. Unfortunately, extremists ignore political reality and so it is important also to explain the false premises on which the idea of the caliphate and an Islamic state are based.

Caliph or Khalifa in Arabic, is used in Islamic tradition to connote theological successors to prophets. According to Sunni Muslims, the prophet of Islam had four "Rightly Guided" caliphs; subsequent caliphs were principally political leaders. A myth developed with the abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate in 1924, which advocated that to restore Islamic power it was necessary to unite all Muslims under a single caliphate.

Osama bin Laden lamented in a speech that the Muslim world had been deprived of a caliphate since the Ottomans. Few Muslims noticed the amusing irony in his comments. His Wahhabi-Saudi compatriots had revolted against the Ottomans, and hence that very caliphate and its brand of Islam.

False political notions

The Ottoman caliphate coincided with the Safavid caliphate and the Mughal Empire, which occasionally claimed a caliphate. The Ottomans and the Safavids even went to war with each other. So, the idea of Islamic unity under a political caliphate, rather than a prophetic one, has no basis in history. Until Muslim scholars make that point clear, the uneducated will continue to be radicalised by false political notions.
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The idea of restoring territorial unity under a single Islamic state has its roots in an even more recent myth. Abdullah Azzam, a former Muslim Brotherhood member, introduced into his writings the idea that jihad in Islam was an individual obligation to recover erstwhile Muslim territory. This 40-year-old idea is the primary concept used by ideologues to radicalise recruits to fight for an Islamic state.

The inevitable counterattack on the caliphate will expose the absurdity and failure of this anarchic idea just as those of al-Qaeda have been exposed. To sustain that success, the rest of us need to provide a counter narrative that can withstand critical scrutiny.

Muslims will always be attracted to the idea of restoring the dignity and leadership of their faith. They can best do this by reading history and pondering over the Quran. When Europe was gripped by centuries of violent religious bigotry, the 17th century English philosopher John Locke wrote enviously about the way in which Christians of all sects and Jews were able to worship freely in the Ottoman realm. The Quran goes beyond tolerance by making recognition of all religions an article of faith in Islam.

The most powerful weapon against extremist ideology is the knowledge that Islamic empires were not exclusively sustained by powerful armies - as was the case of Rome - nor supported by a strong naval fleet, as was the case in the British Empire. The sun set on Islamic power when it handed leadership over to the West in building societies dedicated to pluralism and knowledge - values that Islamic theology champions more highly than a martial jihad.

Middle East
Splits emerge among Iraq's Sunni rebels
Reports suggest Islamic State group is arresting former Baathists and other rebels who do not share its vision.
Last updated: 10 Jul 2014 11:36


Reports have emerged of fighters from the Islamic State group arresting former Baathists and other Sunni rebels who share the aim of toppling the Iraqi government.

Many Sunni Arabs have joined fighters loyal to the self-proclaimed caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in fighting the Iraqi army but do not want the group to take control of the country.

Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr reports from Erbil.
Source:
Al Jazeera

Iraq divided over control of Kirkuk
Baghdad has accused the Kurdistan Regional Government of using the chaos in Iraq to seize control of the disputed city.
Sofia Barbarani Last updated: 11 Jul 2014 12:14
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Kurdish Peshmerga forces have joined other security officials standing guard in Kirkuk [Reuters]

Kirkuk, Iraq - Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), addressed the Kurdish parliament earlier this month, requesting that its members begin preparations to hold a referendum on Kurdish independence.

In a closed session, Barzani asked parliament members to "promptly create an independent electoral commission and begin preparations for holding a referendum".

"The time has come for us to determine our future," said Barzani in a speech that local media had anticipated as "historical". The day before the parliamentary session, Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had already rejected the notion of a referendum, saying the move would "damage" the Kurds.

In what has been criticised by Baghdad as an exploitation of Iraq’s chaos, the KRG's most controversial move towards self-determination has been its assimilation of Kirkuk, a city that is historically and economically important.

IN PICTURES: Iraq's displaced seek safe haven

For years Kirkuk made international headlines because of its volatile security situation. On June 25, a suicide bomber killed at least three people and wounded dozens in the market of a predominantly Kurdish neighbourhood.

The ethnically diverse population - primarily Turkmen, Kurds and Arabs - and each group’s individual claim to the city has also seen Kirkuk involved in conflicts over who will govern. Most notably, during Saddam Hussein’s 'Arabisation' process, a forced demographic re-arrangement saw the scattering of Turkmen and Kurds and their replacement with Arabs.
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In this now unlikely safe haven, 24-year-old Omar, who didn't give Al Jazeera his last name, sat slumped on a stool under the searing afternoon sun, selling toys in the bazaar. Omar fled Diyala province in eastern Iraq with his family and only the clothes on his back after the breakout of violence between the Islamic State group, formerly the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and the Iraqi Army in his hometown of Baqubah.

In a conflict that has seen the displacement of 500,000 Iraqis, Omar saw Kirkuk as the safest and most immediate destination for him and his family. Omar had been sharing accommodation with ten people: "We are two families in one room", he said.

After the Iraqi Army disintegrated and left its posts in the face of the blitzkrieg carried out by the Islamic State group across northern Iraq, Kurdish soldiers known as Peshmerga filled the vacuum, taking control of the oil-rich province they have so often claimed as their own, and bringing a sense of comfort to an often-precarious city.

Many Kirkuk residents claimed to feel safer than they did prior to the arrival of the Peshmerga. "The situation is not good but we are not afraid, we have the Peshmerga here so we feel safe," said Nazam Ali, a local Kurdish bread-seller, adding that he hoped Kirkuk would one day be included within Iraq's Kurdish region.

"I hope Kirkuk will become part of Kurdistan before I die," he said.

RELATED: Mapping Iraq's fighting groups

Kurdish officials have said that Maliki, who has often claimed Kirkuk to be Iraqi and belong to no other identity, called on the Peshmerga to take over, following his army’s retreat.

"Why the Iraqi army left is still an enigma," Maysoon Salem Al-Damluji, a member of the Council of Representatives for the Iraqi National List, told Al Jazeera. "Kirkuk is Iraqi, but the problem needs to be settled through negotiations, not militarily," she said.

We have had Peshmerga [in Kirkuk] since 2003, the number increased about two years ago because of tension with Baghdad. We have just moved them a little further out, where there is danger of attacks on Kirkuk.

- Dr Najmadin Karim, Patriotic Union of Kurdistan

When asked about security and the alleged Peshmerga presence within the city, Kirkuk's Governor, Dr Najmadin Karim, a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, insisted that there were no Kurdish soldiers inside the city.

He said that the Peshmerga had only been deployed to the southern outskirts of Kirkuk, and that only police and Kurdish security forces, known as Asayish, patrolled the city. "The Peshmerga were already here, we just asked for reinforcement," he said.

According to The Guardian, however, on June 12 "truckloads of Peshmerga fighters patrolled the streets" in the city. A week later, the only sign of the Kurdish military was a truck of soldiers on its way back from the front line in Basheer, 15km south of Kirkuk.

"We have had Peshmerga [in Kirkuk] since 2003, the number increased about two years ago because of tension with Baghdad. We have just moved them a little further out, where there is danger of attacks on Kirkuk," said Karim, adamant that the KRG had not forcefully encroached on disputed land in northern Iraq that are under both Iraqi and Kurdish control.

But despite Barzani’s call for a referendum, the Kurdish leader had already ruled out giving up Kirkuk.

Ali, a local Turkmen said he worried when the fighting in Basheer began, concerned that the violence might engulf the city. But mirroring what seemed to be a collective feeling, Ali said he had faith in the Kurdish military and security forces. "If there were no Peshmerga or Asayish then the city would be like Mosul, we would leave and go to Sulaymaniyah or Erbil, but because of them we are safe," Ali said.

Ali said that the city had welcomed internally-displaced persons and that cultural and religious differences had not chipped away at their unity. "We are proud of the Peshmerga, we don’t like [Prime Minister] Maliki’s troops," he added.

But experts have questioned the military’s weaponry and ability to withstand sustained conflict.

"Whilst the Peshmerga has performed well against [the Islamic State group] in skirmishes, there is some doubt whether they can maintain those standards in a sustained conflict, their weapons inventory and ammunition stocks are not suited to such conflicts," said Michael Stephens, Deputy Director of Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Qatar, a British defence and security think-tank.

RELATED: Iraqis fear sectarian violence in Baghdad

Outside the bazaar, a young Arab man was heading home for the afternoon. Salam said he worried about the city’s security situation, but like others, he also expressed his utmost faith in the Kurdish forces. The 35-year-old was sceptical, however, when talking about Kirkuk becoming part of the Kurdish enclave. "I don’t know right now, it depends on the government," he said.

"Especially for the Arabs, we will see what the situation is like at the time," Salam added.

According to RUSI’s Stephens, "the myriad of security concerns that the KRG must now consider means that control of Kirkuk is not necessarily a cause for celebration".

Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution would see the reversal of Saddam Hussein’s ‘Arabisation’ process and the return of Kurdish families to Kirkuk and other disputed territories, including Diyala and Nineveh Province.

The programme, known as ‘normalisation’, has seen the Iraqi government compensate Arab and Kurdish families and give them a chance to relocate to the land they lived on prior to the 'Arabisation' process. This programme would then be followed by a referendum to determine whether the residents of the disputed region want to live under the control of the KRG or the federal government.

Over the past few weeks, Article 140 has become another source of tension in the increasingly strained relations between Baghdad and the Kurdish government. While the article has not been legally implemented, KRG President Barzani told reporters that the article had been put into effect after Kirkuk came under Kurdish control.

Maliki has insisted, however, that Article 140 has not been implemented and that a Kurdish referendum should not be carried out, stating: "We will not stop until we control the areas that were seized from us."

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Source:
Al Jazeera

Dozens of women killed in Baghdad raid
Armed men kill 25 women and wound at least eight people in raid on two buildings in Iraqi capital, police say.
Last updated: 12 Jul 2014 20:54
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Armed men have killed 25 women and wounded at least eight people while storming two buildings in a residential Baghdad compound, Iraqi police and government sources say.

The AFP news agency reported quoting the officials that the compound was being used for prostitution.

"Twenty-five women were killed and eight people wounded, among them four men, when gunmen stormed two buildings in a residential compound in Zayouna in east Baghdad," an Interior Ministry official told the AFP news agency on Saturday.
Check out our complete coverage of the crisis in Iraq

A senior police officer, who said the attackers used silenced weapons, gave the same death toll but reported 11 wounded.

"Unidentified gunmen stormed building number 43 in Zayouna, killing 10 women and wounding five. They also stormed building number 44, where they killed 15 women and wounded six men," a police colonel said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

An AFP correspondent on the scene said police cordoned off the area while witnesses said several people were arrested in the wake of the killings.

"This is the fate of any prostitution," read a inscription on the door of the one of the raided buildings.

Residents said the street's sole access point was manned by police and soldiers.

It was not immediately clear who the killers were but similar raids killed 12 people in May 2013 and three women two months later in the same mainly Shia neighbourhood.

Shia armed groups have become more active on the streets of Baghdad since Sunni fighters led by the Islamic State group took over large expanses of eastern and northern Iraq a month ago.

The violence comes as the New York-based Human Rights Watch said Iraqi security forces and Shia militia members have been involved in executing at least 255 prisoners in six cities and villages.

Middle East
Iraqi security accused of executing prisoners
Amid reports of fighting in Anbar province, Human Rights Watch alleges massacre of 255 Sunni prisoners in June.
Last updated: 12 Jul 2014 14:54


A rights group has said Iraqi security forces and Shia militia members have been involved in executing at least 255 prisoners in six cities and villages.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Saturday that Sunni prisoners were killed as Shia fighters and Iraqi soldiers fled advancing Islamic State rebels.

At least eight of those who were killed were boys under age 18, the group says.

According to HRW, five massacres of prisoners were documented between June 9 and 21 in Mosul, Tal Afar in northern Nineveh province, in Baquba and Jumarkhe in Diyala province, and in Rawa in Anbar province.
Map: The Islamic State's (formerly ISIL) path through Iraq

The group's report cited evidence from witnesses, accounts of the attacks from anonymous police sources and interviews with family members of some of the victims.

"The mass extrajudicial killings may be evidence of war crimes or crimes against humanity," HRW said in its report, adding that it appeared the executions were to avenge "atrocities" by the Sunni Islamic State group.

"Gunning down prisoners is an outrageous violation of international law," said Joe Stork, the deputy Middle East director at HRW.

"While the world rightly denounces the atrocious acts of IS, it should not turn a blind eye to sectarian killing sprees by government and pro-government forces."

In most cases the prisoners were shot dead. In two cases, grenades were thrown inside prison cells of the victims, and in another case dozens of prisoners were set on fire.

The HRW quoted a Reuters news agency report that in a sixth attack, on June 23 in central Babil province, police executed 69 prisoners in their cells in the city of Hilla before transferring their bodies to Baghdad later that day.

Fighting in Haditha

In Saturday's other developments, Iraqi forces said they beat back an assault on Haditha in Anbar, strategic for its large nearby dam.

The attack on Haditha, located northwest of Baghdad on the road linking Sunni rebel-held western areas and the provincial capital Ramadi, located 115km west of Baghdad, began with mortar fire, police said.
Check out our complete coverage of the crisis in Iraq

Rebels travelling in vehicles, including some captured from security forces, then attacked from two sides but were kept from entering the town in fighting that left 13 fighters and four police officers dead, officers and a doctor said.

Previous attacks on Haditha were of a smaller scale and the capture of the dam by the Sunni rebels would raise the prospect of it being used to cut water or flood areas downstream, as happened earlier this year elsewhere in Anbar.

Iraqi officials were airlifting more volunteers to Ramadi to assist government forces, reports said.

About 2,500 volunteers arrived on Friday and were to be joined by another 1,500 on Saturday, General Rasheed Flayeh, commander of operations in Anbar, said.

The men were being ferried out to Ramadi from Baghdad by helicopter, Flayeh said.

The majority of volunteers were Shias who answered a call from the country's top Shia religious leader, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, to defend Iraq from the Islamic State group's advance.

Shia towns overrun

In Diyala, meanwhile, security forces and civilian volunteers on Saturday launched a push to retake rebel-held areas north of Muqdadiyah, a town on a main road to the provincial capital Baquba, a police captain said.

But in a setback for Iraqi government forces, rebels overran the Shia-majority towns of Al-Tawakul and Al-Zarkush in the province, displacing local residents, witnesses said.

In Jalawla, another Diyala town, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters began a major operation to expel rebels from areas they hold, a senior Kurdish officer said.

Major-General Hussein Mansur said Kurdish forces were using tanks and artillery in the battle, and had succeeded in retaking territory from the rebels.

Against this backdrop, Nickolay Mladenov, the UN envoy to Iraq, warned Iraqi politicians that "failure to move forward on electing a new speaker, a new president and a new government risks plunging the country into chaos".

"It will only serve the interests of those who seek to divide the people of Iraq and destroy their chances for peace and prosperity," he said on Saturday.

Kurdish forces seize disputed oilfield
Kurdish region claims disputed northern oilfield as twin bombings at the entrance to province's capital kill 31.
Last updated: 12 Jul 2014 14:01


Iraq's Kurdish region has claimed disputed northern oilfields in another blow to efforts to forge a united front against the Islamic State group-led rebellion, as twin bombings killed 31 people.

The regional Kurdish government further raised the stakes on Friday by claiming control over disputed northern oilfields.

"Production at the new fields under (Kurdish) control will be used primarily to fill the shortage of refined products in the domestic market," it said, adding that staff from the federal North Oil Company could either cooperate with new management or leave.

The move enraged the federal government, which labelled it "irresponsible behaviour which violates the constitution and the national wealth, and disregards the federal authorities and threatens national unity."

The oilfield takeovers come after Kurdish Peshmerga fighters moved into stretches of disputed northern areas vacated by Iraqi forces during the initial Islamic State offensive last month, and regional president Massud Barzani has said they will stay there.

Security challenges

But in a sign of the major security challenges Kurdish forces face, a suicide bombing followed by a roadside bomb blast at the entrance to Kirkuk city, the province's capital, killed at least 31 people and wounded 25 on Friday, health official Sabah Mohammad Amin said.

Many of those killed were people who had fled fighting in neighbouring provinces and were trying to reach safer areas in southern Iraq, a senior security official said.

Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr, reporting from the northern Iraqi city of Tuz Kharmato, said the Kurds were facing both "enemies on the ground and enemies with the central government in Baghdad".

"The Kurds now share up to 1,000km of border with Sunni groups and no group has claimed responsibility (for the bombings)," Khodr said.

"Territory is being fought over by Kurds, Sunnis and Shias, the country is now divided into Kurd, Shia and Sunni provinces. But here south of Kirkuk, the lines aren't clear."

Kurdish Peshmerga forces moved into the disputed northern oil city of Kirkuk in June, shortly after Iraqi government forces fled in the face of an offensive by Islamic State group fighters.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has accused the Kurds of exploiting the security crisis to push for statehood.

Iraqi forces also on Saturday beat back a fresh assault by Sunni fighters on the town of Haditha, which is strategic for its large dam and oil refinery.

Kurds face new dangers with gains in Iraq
Deadly bombings near checkpoint manned by Kurdish forces highlight downside of their takeover of Kirkuk.
Last updated: 12 Jul 2014 20:53


At least 31 people have been killed in suicide car bombings near Kirkuk in northern Iraq. The attacks targeted a checkpoint manned by Kurdish forces. The Kurds moved into the oil city after the Iraqi army abandoned its posts in the face of the Sunni-led rebellion, which began last month. And as the Kurds take new territory, they are facing new dangers.

Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr reports from Tuz Khurmato.
Source:
Al Jazeera

Middle East
Iraq's tailors profit as conflict deepens
Demand for military uniforms and flags has increased in the aftermath of the Islamic State group's takeover of Mosul.
Ridha Al Shammry Last updated: 12 Jul 2014 09:13
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Tailor Abu Mohammad said he makes more than 35 military uniforms each day [Ridha Al Shammry/Al Jazeera]

Baghdad, Iraq - "We haven't worked like this since the Iran-Iraq war," said Abu Mohammad, a 60-year-old tailor who has spent more than 45 years making army uniforms. "We used to make three uniforms a day. Now we make 35 or 40."

Soon after Sunni fighters led by the Islamic State group, formally known as ISIL, took over the northern city of Mosul on June 10, Abu Mohammad saw a spike in the demand for the army and police uniforms he produces at his factory in Baghdad's Zaramly Market.

Sales rocketed when Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most senior Shia leader, called on "all able-bodied Iraqis" to take up arms against Islamic State. Thousands of young, mostly Shia men headed to recruitment centres to volunteer for service in the national army and loyalist militias - and they all needed uniforms. Abu Mohammad said making the clothes is his response to Sistani's call to arms.

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As demand has soared, so have prices. A single uniform once sold for about $40, but the price has now gone up to $60. Meanwhile, the factory's income has gone up to $900 a day.

"The cloth merchants are the ones causing hardship," said Abu Mohammad, who employs six other staff members. "I didn't raise the price I charge for my work, but they have tripled the price of khaki cloth. A square metre used to be $4, now it's gone up to $12."

But Abu Mohammad said he endures threats from armed men who visit his workshop. On Wednesday, unidentified gunmen set off a bomb outside a row of shops selling military clothes, not far from the workshop. But here and in 15 other uniform factories on nearby streets, work carries on day and night.

RELATED: Marginalisation fuels Iraq's Sunni rebellion

"We make uniforms for various armed forces - desert khakis for the army, blue for the police and black for the special forces," said Abu Mohammad.

Abu Mohammad said he asks for identification and rank before he will sell uniforms to officers. But he sells other uniforms without ID. "There's no guarantee they won't go to militias, but we try to ask them what unit they're in, or find out other information," he said.

Adnan Naamah Salman, a former army officer who is now a security analyst, warned of the dangers of selling the clothes to people without proper identification.
The price of uniforms has gone up to $60 due to increased demand and the cost of cloth [Ridha Al Shammry/Al Jazeera]

Hamza Ahmed, a soldier in the government's special forces who was waiting with a colleague in Abu Mohammad's workshop as their new uniforms were put together, said the arrival of thousands of new recruits had helped save the morale of the army.

"The militias and al-Qaeda have carried out many attacks wearing Iraqi army clothes, which they use to disguise themselves and to guarantee there will be no resistance in the areas that the Iraqi government controls," he said.

However, he admitted that he would rather fight alongside one professional soldier than five volunteers. "The volunteers are not sent to the really sensitive areas, or to the special units. Their role is limited to supporting the light infantry brigades," he said.

His colleague, who did not want to be named, added that some army training bases are now facing food shortages because of the influx of volunteers. "We went to the Taji training base [in northern Baghdad] and found crowds of volunteers gathered around a bread oven. Some were taking bread out of the oven before it was ready, risking getting burned, because they were so hungry," he said.

RELATED: Mapping Iraq's fighting groups

Not far from Abu Mohammad's factory, another tailor said his sales had spiked since the events in the north. Hazim al-Shuwaily produces flags bearing the insignia of tribes and military units, as well as Iraq's national flag.

"Before recent events, sales of Iraqi national flags were quite good, they were the mainstay of our sales list," he said.

"Army commanders, for example, ordered big Iraqi flags, then the flags of their units in a slightly smaller size. Tribal elders would order big Iraqi flags, and also buy flags with the symbols and colours of their tribes - my Shuwailat tribe, for example, has a red flag with a star and a crescent on it, a little bit like the Turkish flag."

When law and order breaks down, people seek refuge in other loyalties, such as religion, sect and tribe, in order to find protection, even though that places lots of restrictions on them.

- Saleh al-Khudayri, historian

But since the Islamic State group advanced on Mosul, sales of Iraqi national flags have fallen, while sales of tribal flags, in ever-larger sizes, have surged, according to al-Shuwaily. Meanwhile military commanders continue to order the flags of their units, in cloth that can withstand battles and be visible on TV.

Farouq Baban, a political analyst, said this reflected the growing weakness of the state. "Sectarian conflict has played a big role in stirring up tensions between the tribes," he said.

"Tribal values have become more important, and so have religious loyalties, although they have splintered to the point where the supporters of one cleric from a particular sect fight with followers of a rival cleric from the same sect, and even members of the same tribe fight each other over differences between different arms of the tribe."

Iraqi historian Saleh al-Khudayri said the breakdown of the state was forcing people to find security elsewhere.

"When law and order breaks down, people seek refuge in other loyalties, such as religion, sect and tribe, in order to find protection, even though that places lots of restrictions on them," he said.

"History shows that people lean towards creating cantons or smaller groupings in periods when state power is fragmented or weak. During the Mongol invasion, Baghdad split into Sunni and Shia neighbourhoods that constantly fought against each other. Sadly, it seems that the Iraqi political class haven't read history, which would tell them that destruction awaits societies that don't respect the rule of law, justice and stability."

Iraq's Sunnis pick parliament speaker
Salim al-Juburi chosen as candidate for parliament speaker as UN warns of 'chaos' if no political progress is achieved.
Last updated: 13 Jul 2014 06:04
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Iraq's Sunni Arab politicians have picked a candidate for the post of parliamentary speaker, an action that could revive stalled efforts to form a new government after the elections in April.

The United Nations warned on Saturday that Iraq's deeply divided politicians must quickly form a government or risk descent into "chaos", as security forces beat back one assault but lost ground elsewhere.

Iraqi MPs are to hold a parliament session on Sunday to hasten the appointment of a parliamentary speaker, president and premier, in the hope that a new leadership can better counter a rebel offensive that began last month.

"Elections were held in which doctor Salim al-Juburi won the confidence of the lawmakers present, and he was confirmed as the Sunni bloc's candidate for speaker of parliament," a statement from parliament's United for Change Sunni grouping said.

By convention, the role of head of parliament is awarded to Iraq's Sunnis, the post of president to the Kurds and premiership reserved for Iraq's Shia.

The statement was sent on behalf of a wider meeting of Sunni lawmakers, who also pledged not to accept incumbent premier Nouri al-Maliki for a third term.

Such a condition could be a stumbling block in forming a new government, given Maliki's vow earlier this month to never give up on his candidacy for another turn as Iraqi leader.

Failure to move forward on electing a new speaker, a new president and a new government risks plunging the country into chaos.

- Nickolay Mladenov, UN envoy to Iraq

The previous session of parliament earlier this month ended in mayhem, with MPs trading insults and threats. Too few returned to the chamber after a break meant to cool tempers and the quorum needed to proceed with a vote was lost.

UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov warned Iraqi politicians that: "Failure to move forward on electing a new speaker, a new president and a new government risks plunging the country into chaos."

"It will only serve the interests of those who seek to divide the people of Iraq and destroy their chances for peace and prosperity," he said.

Attendance could be a problem, with parliament not even able to reach a quorum for an emergency session called at the height of the rebel offensive last month.

Abdulsalam al-Maliki, an MP from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's list, said any member of the Shia National Alliance who stays away is siding with "the enemies of Iraq".

Battling Islamic State forces

In Anbar province, security forces backed by tribal fighters held off a major attack by Islamic State (IS) fighters on Haditha, a town northwest of Baghdad made strategic by the large nearby dam and its oil refinery.

The attack on Haditha, located on the road linking IS-held western areas and the provincial capital Ramadi, began with mortar fire, police said.

Gunmen travelling in vehicles, including some captured from security forces, then attacked from two sides but were kept from entering the town in fighting that left 13 IS fighters and four police dead, officers and a doctor said.

Previous attacks on Haditha were of a smaller scale and the capture of the dam by IS would raise the prospect of it being used to cut water or flood areas downstream, as happened earlier this year elsewhere in Anbar.

In Diyala province, meanwhile, security forces and civilian volunteers on Saturday launched a push to retake areas north of Muqdadiyah, a town on a main road to provincial capital Baquba, a police captain said.

But in a setback for government forces, rebels overran the Shiite-majority towns of Al-Tawakul and Al-Zarkush in the province, displacing local residents, witnesses said.

In Jalawla, another Diyala town, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters began a major operation to expel IS fighters from areas they hold, a senior Kurdish officer said.

Major General Hussein Mansur said Kurdish forces were using tanks and artillery in the battle, and had succeeded in retaking territory from the Islamic State rebels.

Kurdish authorities on Friday laid claim to disputed northern oilfields in a move slammed by Baghdad.

The Baghdad-Kurd row has dimmed the prospects of significant progress in forming a new government when parliament meets on Sunday.

Why Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is an impostor
If there were a real caliphate today, Baghdadi would have been declared an apostate.
Last updated: 14 Jul 2014 06:17
Osman Rifat Ibrahim

Osman Rifat Ibrahim

Osman Rifat Ibrahim is Chairman of the Royal Mohamed Ali Institute in Lisbon.
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Baghdadi has managed to destroy the colonial borders of the Sykes-Picot agreement [AP]

So Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi claims he has replaced the caliphs of old; those men of wisdom and learning who presided over the glorious days of Islamic civilisation, from the first Abu Bakr, father-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, to the last one, Abdulmecid II (1868-1944), the last Sunni caliph of Islam from the Ottoman dynasty.

Under the guidance of enlightened men, over several centuries, the caliphate promoted knowledge, which enabled the extraordinary achievements of the Islamic civilisation in the realms of science, literature, and arts. One of its most vibrant legacies is its architecture, extending from Cordoba in Spain to the Taj Mahal in India.

An article in The Economist published recently, entitled "The Tragedy of the Arabs", argues: "But only the Arabs can reverse their civilisational decline, and right now there is little hope of that happening. The extremists offer none. The mantra of the monarchs and the military men is 'stability'."
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Indeed, the Arab elites left over from the Ottoman times have all now vanished, or been disposed of; they were the people who understood how to deal with the challenges inherent in different ethnic and religious groups inhabiting the region.

The succession of military men, who - since Gamal Abdel Nasser's coup d'etat in Egypt in 1952 - have risen to prominence over the decades, have promoted a series of shallow ideologies in their quest to remain in power, namely nationalism, socialism, liberalism, and Islamism. These attempts have destroyed the fabric of the multi-ethnic, multi-religious community of the region. What good can come of the kings, clerics and army generals who now lead the states of the greater Middle East?

Pseudo-caliphate

The pseudo-caliphate declared by the Islamic State group, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, is in the hands of some barbarian, who comes from an Iraqi village and supposedly holds a doctorate degree in education from a university in Baghdad. For an educated man hell bent on avenging his oppressed people, he is unwittingly serving the interests of his worst enemies, the US, UK, and Israel.

Nevertheless, for all his shortcomings, Baghdadi has achieved what no one else has managed in these last decades - that is, to destroy the colonial frontiers of the Sykes-Picot agreement. But why should this achievement be considered such an awe-inspiring feat? Syria and Iraq are geographical entities and they were never in history anything more than that. Their sudden "nationhood" was a French and British invention.

That the Ummayyad Caliphate had its seat in Damascus did not mean there was a Syria and the same can be said of the Abbassid Caliphate; a seat in Baghdad never meant it was an "Iraqi" caliphate. It was much bigger than that.

This self-styled caliph is an unfortunate creation of foreign actors in the region, whose game will have dire repercussions in the greater Middle East. Might the new caliph dare to challenge next the Saudi rule over the holy cities of Islam?
Map: The Islamic State's (formerly ISIL) path through Iraq

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been successful in drawing a following from among the "damned"; that is, the underfed, idealistic, ignorant, downtrodden, and vengeful youth, who have always been the primary victims of western aggression on their culture. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, Europe's colonialist wars, whether in Algeria, Israel, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan or Pakistan, has led to the demonisation of Islam. Muslims were then - and still are - subjected to racism in the West. In modern times, this racism has spilled over into media reports, which seem to go on overdrive whenever a single westerner is abducted in Libya, but blatantly ignore the thousands of Arab lives lost in depleted uranium bombings.

Baghdadi's followers include tribes bombed by the US, foreign fighters from Muslim communities in Europe, united by their sense of victimisation, but also fanatics who seem to believe Islam is a religion of war, psychotics and mass murderers who are only looking for the thrill of the kill. Among them, there may also be a smattering of simple, honest people who have been (mis)led to believe that Baghdadi is the new "Mahdi" (messianic redeemer).

And yet, can any self-respecting Muslim leader in the world take this man's claim seriously? Many have already come forward to denounce him - one has even called Baghdadi a "deviant".

The new Mahdi?

In a way, by a stretch of the imagination, Baghdadi may be a rendition of the 19th century self-proclaimed Mahdi Mohammed Ahmed Ibn Abdallah, a religious leader of the Samaniyya order in Sudan, who claimed that the Ottoman Caliphate was a den of unbelievers and called the Sherif of Mecca a "kafir" (infidel). Born in a Sudanese village, Mahdi managed to defeat the Turco-Egyptian occupying forces and captured Khartoum in 1885. He died of typhus six months later.

Whether or not one agrees on the parallels, Baghdadi's future is likely to resemble the demise of the Sudanese Mahdi, whose successor, his followers and his state were crushed after a four-year adventure by Anglo-Egyptian forces. The Sudanese Mahdi state had only one beneficiary, Britain, which occupied Egypt and the Sudan.

Yet, Baghdadi has managed something which would have seemed impossible a few years back. He now controls an area larger than France which borders Syria, Iraq, and Turkey. He has an enormous treasure chest and has managed to basically destroy the Iraqi state, for Kurds have taken this opportunity to take the disputed oil-rich city of Kirkuk, which they have long claimed as their spiritual capital, and have decided to call for a referendum on independence.

Whether Baghdadi is acting for himself or is being manipulated by others is not really relevant in the sense that he is basically doing the job of his enemies for them. Nothing pleases Israel better than disarray in the Arab states and a Sunni-Shia war of attrition.

At the end of the day, Baghdadi is another self-proclaimed "Mahdi", whose only achievement was to enable Britain to invade Egypt and the Sudan in 1898.

In sum, the new caliph is nothing but an impostor and would there be a real caliphate - even an Ottoman one - in the Muslim world today, Baghdadi would have been proclaimed an apostate and promptly disposed of.

Osman Rifat Ibrahim is Chairman of the Royal Mohamed Ali Institute in Lisbon.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Opinion
Israel and Iraqi Kurds: Gambling with 'moderate allies'
Israel's recognition of Kurdish claims to independence is an act that perpetuates the denial of Palestinian rights.
Last updated: 05 Jul 2014 10:13
Victoria Fontan

Victoria Fontan
Follow @https://twitter.com/DecolonizingPAX

Victoria Fontan, Professor of Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies at the University of Duhok, in the Kurdish Region of Iraq; and also Doctoral Candidate in War Studies at King's College London.
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Ahmad Moussa

Ahmad Moussa
Follow @https://twitter.com/a_moussa5

Ahmad Moussa is a Palestinian-Canadian writer and Visiting Professor at the University of Duhok, in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
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Pundits have criticised the Kurds for appearing greedy and looking out for their own nationalistic interests [Getty Image]

For years, there has been speculation on the nature and scope of relations between Israel and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. But on June 29, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finally set the record straight, saying his country would support the creation of a Kurdish state. This statement came on the heels of last week's delivery to Israel of crude oil from Iraqi Kurdistan, in defiance of the position of both the Iraqi central government and the United States.

The history of Kurdish and Israeli relations dates back to the 1960s and Israel's apparent realisation that an independent Kurdish state could become what Netanyahu recently called a "moderate ally" in the region.

"The Kurds have always thought that they were friends with Israel," explains Khaider Domle, a peace-building expert at the University of Duhok, in Iraqi Kurdistan, "because there are lots of Kurdish Jews in Israel, and also many Jews in Kurdistan. We share a common history of being oppressed."

Scores of individual initiatives celebrating these commonalities have sprung up on social media in the past few years. Since the fall of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in 2003, there have been concrete collaborations, mostly in the security and development sectors.

In 2004, US journalist Seymour Hersh wrote that Israel, which had originally supported the US-led invasion of Iraq, had realised that the US could not win this war of occupation. Its Plan B was therefore to provide training to the Kurds, not only to help its US ally against a growing insurgency but also to continue forging a strong non-Arab alliance in the region. It was understood that this would clearly undermine Israel's relationship with Turkey, which under no circumstances would want Iraqi Kurdistan to grow in autonomy. Hersh stated at the time that this move could embolden the Kurds to one day declare independence. Ten years later, this scenario appears to have become inevitable.

As the group now calling itself the Islamic State (formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) makes rapid gains across Iraq, Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), has announced plans to hold a referendum on independence. Pundits have criticised the Kurds for appearing greedy and looking out for their own nationalistic interests at the expense of the country's strength and unity.

Significantly, there have also been increasing comparisons between Israel and a Kurdish state, which have only fuelled anti-Kurd sentiments among Arabs. Such criticism and comparisons are both politically motivated, and inaccurate.

A marriage of convenience?

As security conditions deteriorate across Iraq, the Kurdistan Region has remained relatively safe and prosperous, largely due to its security apparatus. The Kurdistan Region has its own army, the Peshmerga or "those who face death", a strong internal security agency, Asaesh, and a large network of informants in each village and town.

While Kurdish public opinion seems generally in favour of establishing official ties with Israel, many analysts concede this has to be viewed within the context of self-determination, and is essentially a marriage of convenience.
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"Israelis will recognise our independence right away. They will do so in the same way that the US recognised Israel within 11 minutes of them proclaiming their State back in 1948," says Amjed Rasheed, a doctoral researcher at the University of Durham, in the UK.

But is this not a risky political gamble for both Israel and the Iraqi Kurds? Is there not an inherent contradiction in supporting the Kurdish bid for self-determination, but opposing the Palestinian struggle for the very same right? This would certainly place an independent "Kurdistan" in a precarious position within the region.

Rasheed insists that while the Kurds sympathise with the Palestinians, "the Kurdish leadership had to prioritise in the same way that King Abdullah of Jordan also did during his Jordan First Campaign".

Nevertheless, the question remains: If an independent Kurdish state and Israel would probably become allies, how would such an alliance reflect on the Palestinian struggle for statehood?

Israeli media is full of editorials and statements in support of Kurdish independence. Some articles have compared the persecution of Jews throughout history with the suffering of the Kurds. In the oped, Time for Israel to Help the Kurds, published in Arutz Sheva on June 26, the author writes: "Even though it lives in a terrible neighbourhood and desperately seeks friends, Israel cannot and must not evade its unique responsibility towards the Kurdish people, who also suffer from the depredations of their hostile neighbours."

Who's really the victim?

Such statements are capitalising on the typical Israeli narrative of Arab aggressors and are using this as a way to establish a marriage of convenience with the Kurds. Without a doubt, the Kurds of Iraq were victimised by Saddam Hussein's Anfal Campaign, which killed more than 100,000 Kurds and destroyed 2000 villages, according to Human Rights Watch.

But this narrative of shared historical injustices calls for a serious reality check. First, the State of Israel was created by a historical injustice - the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, which included the destruction of 531 villages. As a result, Palestinians are now scattered in neighbouring Arab countries and internally displaced in refugee camps or live in diaspora. Those Palestinians who remained and live within the State of Israel and hold Israeli citizenship live in constant and permanent insecurity and are treated as second or third class citizens, no different from the plight of Kurds living in Iran.

The historical injustices that both Kurdish and Palestinian people continue to endure can be traced to the Sykes-Picot Agreement that divided the Middle East region according to British and French interests. As a result, the statehood or self-determination of both the Kurds and the Palestinians was compromised while simultaneously benefiting the Zionist movement in their aspirations at the expense of the Palestinians.

Notwithstanding the continued denial of these historical events, Israel has implemented a law known as the Nakba Law that attempts to silence any mention or education of this narrative.

To justify their support for Kurdish self-determination while ignoring the plight of the Palestinians, pro-Kurdish Israeli narratives argue that Palestinians are not distinct and are somehow an invented identity. This is akin to the Turkish fairytale that the Kurds are not Kurds; rather they are "mountain Turks".

Indeed, some academics have exposed this farce. For instance, Israeli scholar Shlomo Sand's book "The Invention of the Jewish People" chronicles the Zionist movement's construction of "a new Jew", one based on racism and justified by religion to colonise lands under the guise of the chosen people and the promised land.

Kurds as a 'common denominator'

But let's set the record straight. Unlike the Israelis, the Kurds are not colonising a territory or oppressing people. They are not involved in a $7.5bn arms trade.They are not an exporter of war and surveillance technology in the world. They are not violating international law with impunity. They are not a nuclear state. They are not the highest recipient of US aid in the world.They are not holding the largest fleet of F16 fighter jets outside of the United States. Therefore, manipulation of historical narrative can only go so far because you cannot change the facts.

The Kurds and the Palestinians are brethren-in-suffering; the victims of the infamous Sykes-Picot Agreement that was tailored to the benefit Israel and Europe.

Therefore, if Israel is looking to support a victimised nation, it need not look too far. It ought to begin by recognising the right of self-determination of the indigenous Palestinians.

Like the Kurds, the Palestinians have endured the continuum of a historical injustice since the Sykes-Picot Agreement, under the watch of the international community.

Iraq Sunni insurgency seeks end to Shi'te political domination
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Masked Sunni Muslim gunmen walk in the streets during a patrol in the city of Falluja, about 43 miles west of Baghdad, on Feb. 23, 2014.
Reuters 2 days ago By Reuters of Reuters



AMMAN (Reuters) - Sunni insurgents and tribal leaders said on Wednesday after a closed meeting they would keep fighting until they take over the Iraqi capital and bring down a U.S. imposed political order that brought Shi'ites to rule the country and marginalised them.

Several hundred tribal figures, representatives of Islamist insurgent groups, ex-army officers and former Baath party figures attended the meeting in the Jordanian capital.

Sunni cleric Abdul Malik Al-Saadi, who praised the "mujahdeen" (holy warriors) leading the revolt, said tribes were the backbone of a broad based insurgency battling against Iraqi Shi'ite Islamist Prime Minister Nuri Maliki's rule. He said these forces had now captured large parts of western and northern Iraq.

The Islamic State, the Al Qaeda offshoot, is only a part of the uprising, the Sunni's top religious figure said.

"This revolution is led by the sons of tribes who are leading it and the Islamic State is a small part of it," said Al-Saadi, who led some of the mass peaceful protests in Iraq's Sunni heartland in 2013 that called for an end to security abuses and perceived marginalisation and political exclusion.

Most Sunni figures said they were left with few alternatives but to fight Maliki who is now relying increasingly on Shiite militias such as Asaib Ahl Al-Haq they say are funded and armed by Iran in his battle against the rebellious governorates.

"We are now in a state of continued Jihad to end the remnants of the U.S. occupation and restore the rights of the Iraqi people," said Abd al-Naser Al Janaby, a prominent Salafi cleric and politician and a leading supporter of the armed uprising. "We expect a new dawn for Iraq from this revolution."

Pro-government papers close to Maliki have attacked the Amman meeting, saying some of the participants are politicians accused of terrorism charges.

In 2007 Maliki accused Janaby of kidnapping and killing dozens of Shi'ites and is currently deputy head of the "Front for Jihad, Liberation and Natioanal Salvation in Iraq".

Ahmad Dabash, an insurgent leader and a founder of the Islamic Army, one of the several groups that have fueled the insurgency, said the participants shared a common opposition to the partition of Iraq on ethnic or sectarian grounds.

The conference held under Jordanian auspices is the largest such event organized by Iraqi Sunni leaders since militant fighters led by the Islamic State seized wide swathes of the north and west of the country last month in lightning advances.

A final statement, which described the situation in Iraq as worsening, urged the international community to support the aims of the rebels to save "Iraq and the region from an unknown future."

The conference which excluded Maliki's few Sunni allies within the government said they would fight any attempt to revive government-backed Sunni militias known as the Sahwat (Awakening) that had succeeded with U.S. support in repelling and defeating Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Sahwat is a pejorative term among jihadists, who believe that the Americans pitted Sunnis against each other in Iraq, only to betray them later by handing power to a Shi'ite government.

Crucially, Islamic State fighters have now received support from Sunni tribes who once fought bitterly against them, a sign of widespread Sunni alienation from Baghdad since the end of U.S. occupation.

"We are not ready to repeat that experience. The Islamic State has not humiliated us and if it had not been for them we would not be here today raising our heads high," said Sheikh Qasem Obeidi, a tribal leader sympathetic to the Islamic State.

Another tribal leader said the eyes of insurgents were now focused on reaching the capital Baghdad.

"We will take over Baghdad and bring down the political regime in Baghdad in the coming weeks, God willing," said Sheikh Fayez Al-Shawoosh, spokesman for the insurgent led council of Iraqi tribal chiefs.

Representatives of the loose federation of Sunni armed groups and tribal fighters under the umbrella of Military Councils said they were not ready to fight the Islamic State many of whose leaders were drawn from Iraq's top tribes.

They blame Maliki's Shi'ite led militias for the death, imprisonment and disappearance of thousands of Sunnis.

Ex-army officers and loyalists of executed former dictator Saddam Hussein's Baath party went as far as saying they shared with the Al Qaeda offshoot common military goals even though they were ideologically wide apart.

"Now the Islamic State is fighting and has scored victories and helped revolutionaries in achieving their goals so we are almost in harmony with them in achieving our goals," senior Baath leader Abdul Samed al Ghurairi who attended the parley told Reuters.

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; editing by Andrew Hay)

More than 5,000 civilians killed in Iraq this year: U.N.
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Residents inspect the site of bomb attack at a market in Baghdad's Sadr City, July 16, 2014.
Reuters 1 day ago By Reuters


BAGHDAD (Reuters) - At least 5,576 Iraqi civilians have been killed this year in violence, the United Nations said on Friday in the most detailed account yet of the impact of months of unrest culminating in an assault by Sunni militants through the north of the country.

At least 11,665 have been wounded since January, when Sunni insurgents led by al Qaeda offshoot now known as the Islamic State overran the city of Falluja in the western province of Anbar, the U.N. said in a report.

Last month, the insurgents seized swathes of northern Iraq, including the area's largest city Mosul. Of the 2,400 people killed in June, 1,531 were civilians, the U.N. said earlier this month.

The report documents what it calls "systematic and egregious violations" of international law by the group now calling itself the Islamic State.

The U.N found the group had executed civilians, committed sexual violence against women and girls, carried out kidnappings and targeted assassinations of political, community, and religious leaders and killed children, among other violations.

The report also details violations committed by government forces and affiliated groups, citing "summary executions/extrajudicial killings of prisoners and detainees",

which it said may constitute a war crime.

The U.N. noted that the "deteriorating security situation" had limited its ability to directly monitor and verify incidents.

More than 1.2 million people had been displaced since violence escalated last month, according to the report.

(Reporting By Maggie Fick; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Bombings kill at least 27 in Baghdad
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A member of the Iraqi security forces stands next to followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr attending open-air Friday prayers in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City, Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, July 18, 2014.
AP 3 hr ago By SAMEER N. YACOUB of Associated Press


BAGHDAD (AP) — A series of bombings, including three over a span of less than 10 minutes, killed at least 27 people across Baghdad on Saturday, shaking the fragile sense of security the capital has maintained despite the Sunni militant offensive raging across northern and western Iraq.

The attacks are among the most significant in Baghdad since insurgents led by the Islamic State extremist group captured Iraq's second-largest city Mosul last month at the start of its blitz across Iraq. After Mosul's fall, the government moved aggressively to try to secure Baghdad amid fears it might fall as well, and the city has seen few major attacks in recent weeks.

Saturday's deadliest bombing took place in the Shiite neighborhood of Abu Dashir, where a suicide attacker rammed a car packed with explosives into a checkpoint, killing at least nine people and wounding 19, officials said. Four policemen were among the dead, a police officer said.

Later in the day, three car bombs in different neighborhoods of Baghdad went off in less than 10 minutes, hitting the districts of Baiyaa, Jihad and Khazimiyah. The attacks killed at least 15 people and wounded another 42, police officials said.

Another car bomb near a bus stop in Khazimiyah killed three people and wounded 15, police said.

Hospital officials in Baghdad confirmed the casualty figures in all of the attacks.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.

The Sunni militant blitz, led by the Islamic State extremist group, has pushed into areas west of Baghdad, and also has established a presence in a belt of Sunni areas running south and north of the capital. Baghdad itself has a predominantly Shiite population.

The Iraqi military launched a counteroffensive late last month to try to dislodge insurgents from the city of Tikrit, some 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of Baghdad. That effort has secured much of the highway between Tikrit and the city of Samarra, home to one of the most important Shiite shrines, but Tikrit itself remains in militant hands.

Northwest of Tikrit, heavy fighting has raged around an air base that previously served as a U.S. military facility known as Camp Speicher.

On Saturday, Iraqi military spokesman Lt. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi denied reports that militants had captured Camp Speicher, saying government troops repelled an attack on Friday and the base remains fully in government hands.

Three security officials confirmed that the militants launched an assault on the air field late Thursday, blasting through an outside wall of the base and destroying one helicopter. One of the officials said the other helicopters at Speicher were "evacuated" from the base to prevent them from being damaged, but they have since been returned to duty.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.

A resident of Tikrit, Ahmed Jassim, said by telephone that clashes were taking place around Speicher on Saturday, but "the gunmen are outside the camp." The center of Tikrit is still under insurgent control, and is being shelled by the Iraqi military.

___

Associated Press writer Qassim Abdul-Zahra contributed to this report.

Christians flee from Islamic State threats
Hundreds of families reported to have left Iraqi city Mosul after group said they must convert, leave, pay tax or die.
Last updated: 19 Jul 2014 11:11
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Islamic State group gave Christians until 9am GMT on Saturday to abide by the order [FILE: AP]

Christian families have abandoned their homes and fled Mosul after the Sunni rebel group, the Islamic State, threatened them with death if they did not convert to Islam or pay tax.

"Some families have had all their money and jewellery taken from them at an insurgent checkpoint as they fled the city," Abu Rayan, a Christian who left Mosul with his family told AFP news agency on Saturday.

"Some of our homes have already been confiscated and I know families who have handed their keys to neighbours, asking them to look after their property with the hope they would return one day." Rayan said.

The hardline group on Friday ordered Christians in Mosul that they could convert, pay a tax or flee the city after abandoning their possessions.

An earlier Islamic State statement said there would be "nothing but the sword" if Christians did not abide by those conditions by 9am GMT on Saturday.

The AFP said that hundreds of Christians had fled by the deadline, although Al Jazeera could not confirm these numbers.

While some families initially appeared prepared to pay the "jizya" Islamic tribute to stay in their ancient homes, messages broadcast by mosques on Friday appeared to spark an exodus.

"Christian families are on their way to Dohuk and Arbil" in the autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq, Chaldean patriarch Louis Sako, who heads Iraq's largest Christian community, told AFP.

"For the first time in the history of Iraq, Mosul is now empty of Christians," he said, putting the number of those who were still in the city on Thursday at 25,000.

The Islamic State "seems intent on wiping out all traces of minority groups from areas it now controls in Iraq," Human Rights Watch said in a statement Saturday.

The mass displacement was the latest in weeks of turmoil which has forced more than 600,000 people from their homes, left thousands dead and brought Iraq to the brink of collapse.

France offers asylum to Iraqi Christians
France to welcome Christians fleeing the area controlled by Islamic State, expresses outrage at their persecution.
Last updated: 28 Jul 2014 18:10
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Before the 2003 US-led invasion more than a million Christians lived in Iraq [AFP]

France has said it is ready to welcome Christians fleeing the area of Iraq controlled by Islamic State (IS) fighters, saying it is "outraged" by their persecution.

Islamic State fighters seized large swaths of northern Iraq last month, prompting hundreds of Christian families in
Mosul to flee a city which has hosted the faith since its earliest years.

"France is outraged by these abuses that it condemns with the utmost firmness," Laurent Fabius, France's foreign minister, and Bernard Cazeneuve, France's interior minister, said in a joint statement on Monday.

"The ultimatum given to these communities in Mosul by ISIL is the latest tragic example of the terrible threat that jihadist groups in Iraq, but also in Syria and elsewhere, pose to these populations that are historically an integral part of this region," they added, referring Islamic State's former name of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

"We are ready, if they wish, to facilitate their asylum on our soil.

"We are in constant contact with local and national authorities to ensure everything is done to protect them," both ministers said.

UN denounces minority persecution

Islamic State had ordered Christian families to convert to Islam or leave the city, prompting the mass exodus.

The ultimatum given to these communities in Mosul by ISIL is the latest tragic example of the terrible threat that jihadist groups in Iraq, but also in Syria and elsewhere, pose to these populations that are historically an integral part of this region

Statement by Laurent Fabius and and Bernard Cazeneuve, France's interior and foreign ministers

Those who failed to comply were threatened with execution, and the property of those who left was forfeited to the Islamic State, AFP reported a statement from the group as saying.

The United Nations Security Council has already denounced the persecution of minorities in Iraq, warning such actions can be considered crimes against humanity.

In a unanimous declaration adopted last week, the Council condemned "in the strongest terms the systematic persecution of individuals from minority populations and those who refuse its extremist ideology in Iraq by ISIL and associated armed groups," it said.

Islamic State has also persecuted Iraq's majority Shia Muslims in areas under their control, as well as Sunni Muslims that oppose the group's idealogy.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki earlier this month condemned the treatment of the Christians and instructed a government committee to help those made homeless.

Before the 2003 US-led invasion, more than a million Christians lived in Iraq, including more than 600,000 in Baghdad and 60,000 in Mosul, as well as a substantial number in Kirkuk and in Basra.

Hezbollah man dies on 'jihad duty' in Iraq
Commander from Lebanon's Bekaa Valley killed in battle near Mosul, which Islamic State group captured in June.
Last updated: 31 Jul 2014 19:02
[img]
Ibrahim al-Hajj's son clings to his father's coffin. Hajj was killed in a battle near Mosul, sources say [Al Jazeera]

A Hezbollah commander has been killed on "jihad duty" in Iraq, the group's TV channel has said, indicating the Lebanese group that is already fighting in Syria's civil war may be involved in a second front in the region.

Sources in Lebanon told the Reuters news agency on Thursday that the Hezbollah commander Ibrahim al-Hajj was killed in a battle in Tal Afar near Mosul, a city in northern Iraq seized last month by the Islamic State group.

Hajj, described as a technical trainer, was buried in the village of Qilya in the Bekaa Valley on Wednesday, a Hezbollah official told Al Jazeera's Beirut bureau. Pictures and videos posted on social media showed the funeral procession.

Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV referred to Hajj as "commander", saying he died while "performing his jihadi duties".
Ibrahim al-Hajj

Al Jazeera's Beirut desk said that Hajj's coffin was accompanied by another when it arrived at Beirut international airport on Tuesday. The identity of the other body is unknown.

In July 2006, Hajj was part of a group of Hezbollah fighters who crossed into Israel, captured two Israeli soldiers and brought them into Lebanon, Lebanese security officials told the AP news agency.

Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Shia group, had previously said that its advisers were offering guidance to Shia fighters in the Iraq conflict, which escalated last month when the Islamic State group seized swaths of territory from the Shia-led government in Baghdad.

A Hezbollah commander who had fought in border areas with Syria told the National newspaper in United Arab Emirates that his brother-in-law was one of those sent last month to Baghdad and Samarra to monitor the Islamic State’s movements.

"We have had a presence there for a long time, of course, but it’s increasing for obvious reasons," said the commander.

Hezbollah's deployment in Syria has helped President Bashar al-Assad's government strengthen its hold on power by re-establishing control over a strategic corridor of territory stretching north from Damascus.

The group says it is fighting in Syria against the threat posed by Sunni rebels.

Assad is an ally of Iran and a member of the Alawite offshoot of the Shia sect. Tehran also has longstanding ties to Shia politicians in Iraq.

Hezbollah was founded with Iranian help in the early 1980s and fought to drive out Israeli forces that occupied southern Lebanon until 2000.
Source:
Al Jazeera and agencies

The consequences of not challenging the Islamic State
The Islamic State's violence against minority groups and non-Sunni sects goes against the teachings of Islam.
Last updated: 02 Aug 2014 11:42
Mohamed Ghilan

Mohamed Ghilan
Follow @https://twitter.com/mohamedghilan

Mohamed Ghilan is a neuroscience PhD candidate at the University of Victoria, Canada, and a student of Islamic jurisprudence.
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Mosul is empty of Christians for the first time in its history, writes Ghilan [Reuters]

Extremism is dangerous, but it is more dangerous to let it flourish and manifest itself the way the terrorist organisation known as the Islamic State group has been allowed to. The problem with allowing extremism to grow unchallenged is that it will eventually drive rational parties into extreme reactions in order to combat it. Thus, more innocent civilians will inevitably suffer in the process, as the problem becomes too big to contain.

Targeting minorities

Recently, Islamic State seized Mar Behnam, an ancient monastery near the predominantly Christian town of Qarqosh, to the southeast of Mosul. The militants expelled the monks, allowing them to take only the clothes they were wearing and preventing them from saving any of the monastery's relics. A few days earlier, Christians in Mosul were given an ultimatum to convert, pay a religious levy, or face death. Their response has been a mass exodus that left the northern Iraqi city empty of Christians for the first time in its history.

The Islamic State has been engaged in a vicious campaign of abductions, murders, and expulsions of minorities in all the areas they sweep through. In practice, they exemplify the very reason why fighting, i.e. armed jihad, was permitted in Islam, which was to combat the oppression of aggressors like the Islamic State:

"Those who have been attacked are permitted to take up arms because they have been wronged - God has the power to help them - those who have been driven unjustly from their homes only for saying, 'Our Lord is God.' If God did not repel some people by means of others, many monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques, where God's name is much invoked, would have been destroyed." [22:39-40]

This verse in the Quran is recognised by Muslim scholarly authorities to contain the primary reason for armed jihad in Islam, which is the repelling of unjustified aggression against oneself or others due to difference in belief. Moreover, a corollary that is implicitly understood from it is that non-Muslims living in Muslim lands must be protected and it is impermissible to unjustly expel them or destroy their houses of worship. In their treatment of Iraqi Christians, Islamic State fighters flagrantly commit the very acts abhorred in Islamic teachings.
Inside Story - 'Islamic caliphate': Blessing or threat?

Religious violence is quickly metastasising. After seizing Mosul and Tikrit, the Islamic State are stepping up their attacks in Baghdad. The recent wave of Baghdad bombings exercised by the Islamic State targeted mostly Shia Muslim areas, the victims of which have been overwhelmingly civilians. If this is an indication, we can expect that should Islamic State take over Baghdad, we will witness a genocide of an unfathomable scale if the militant group continues to be unchallenged.

In June, the Islamic State militants staged mass executions, advertising afterwards that they had killed in one report 1,700 Shia soldiers in Tikrit. It is not for nothing that in every case the executed have been men. According to the Islamic State's bastardised conceptualisation of Islam, Shia are not even Muslims, and therefore once they are conquered, they can kill the men and enslave the women and children. Thus, it is not far-fetched that we may soon hear of slaves sold in public markets of northern Iraq and Syria where this group operates.

In response to the eminent threat from the Islamic State on the Iraqi capital, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's highest-ranking Shia Muslim cleric, issued a fatwa summoning the country's Iraqi Muslims, regardless of sect, to take up arms and defend the country, its people, and its holy sites. However, Sunnis, who remain divided on where they should pledge their allegiance, do not consider Ayatollah Sistani's call authoritative. The impetus for them to join the army, remain neutral, or even fight among the ranks of the Islamic State is largely determined by prospective political gains that depend on their specific tribal or geographical context, and how they feel about Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his government.

One the other hand, a number of different Shia militias have sprung up, and Baghdad is increasingly on edge as it prepares for war with the Islamic State. However, it seems that among these militia groups are fringe Shia militants exercising their own brand of terrorism, killing 25 women in Baghdad who were accused of prostitution. The region is thus falling deeper into lawlessness.

The extreme anti-Shia sentiment harboured by the Islamic State militants did not develop in a vacuum. BBC World Service recently released a documentary titled "Freedom to Broadcast Hate" in which they investigated the proliferation of TV channels in the Arab world, spreading sectarian religious and political messages that deepen the schism between Sunni and Shia Muslims. In some cases, TV evangelists sensationally invoked God in prayer to destroy their counterparts, whom they view as an existential threat to Islam as a whole, and entice their viewers to do the same. Most of the recruited fighters for the Islamic State are products of a TV-raised generation, having their religious and political opinions formed through watching such sectarian programmes.

The Islamic State's policies of persecution are not limited to minorities of Shia Muslims and Christians. Recently, the militants carried out a public execution, stoning to death a woman in the northern Syrian province of Raqqa after she was handed this sentence for allegedly committing adultery. Hadi Salameh, one of the activists in the province, said that residents are "terrified" of the Islamic State, but fear the consequences of speaking up.

In addition, Amnesty International has documented several abuses by the Islamic State against local civilian populations, including children in areas under their control. These include flogging with rubber generator belts or cables, torture with electric shock, or being forced to adopt painful stress positions. This is not to mention an enforcement of a religious law that sees as many as five executions per week.

Prophet Muhammad's warnings

In all their abuses and atrocities, the Islamic State claims to be merely implementing Sharia under their alleged caliphate. However, a reading of history and an understanding of Islamic law would quickly reveal that the Islamic State group is either grossly misinformed, or knowingly engaging in abuses they deem necessary to gain firm control over the population.
Check out our complete coverage of the crisis in Iraq

The leader of Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is alleged in a published biography to be a descendant of Prophet Muhammad and his tribe, Quraysh. While this may be an attractive quality to his supporters pursuing their delusional caliphate, the Prophet Muhammad would definitely differ as his transmitted statements indicate. Prophet Muhammad said, "The destruction of my people will be at hands of young men from Quraysh." In another Hadith narration he said, "There will be a widespread tribulation that will include everyone, the stirring of which will be by a man from my household, claiming he is of my lineage but in reality he is not, for my people are God fearing." In fact, Prophet Muhammad implores people to fight such an individual and his group when possible in order to stop his mischief in the land.

Although Baghdadi's group has been widely condemned by numerous Muslim scholars, the danger lurks in the fact that average young Muslims in the area may be swayed by his rhetoric. In his released sermon after taking control over Mosul, Baghdadi carefully reiterated statements made by the first caliph after the passing of Prophet Muhammad as he urged Muslims to join in what he called a jihad. Combined with what seemed like a sweeping victorious takeovers of major cities, such a presentation can be very attractive to enthusiastic Muslim youth.

We are no longer dealing with al-Qaeda militants in caves in the mountains of Afghanistan. As the Islamic State has been allowed to claim more land and power and become more organised, we have witnessed more suffering and death. It is disconcerting that we might reach a point of no return, and have more suffering and casualties.

Mohamed Ghilan is a neuroscience PhD candidate at the University of Victoria, Canada, and a student of Islamic jurisprudence.

Follow him on Twitter: @mohamedghilan

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

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En esta fotografía del 12 de abril de 2013, un avión F/A-18 de Estados Unidos vuela bajo durante ejercicios militares en el noreste de Filipinas. Estados Unidos bombardeó el viernes 8 de agosto de 2014 artillería del grupo extremista Estado Islámico en Irak. (Foto AP/Bullit Marquez)

08/08/2014 11:19

Dos cazas de Estados Unidos bombardearon el viernes a combatientes islámicos en Irak, informó el Pentágono, haciendo efectiva la promesa del presidente Barack Obama de usar fuerza militar para detener el avance de extremistas y enfrentar la amenaza que representan para los civiles iraquíes y para los estadounidenses que están en el país.
El secretario de prensa del Pentágono, contraalmirante John Kirby, dijo que dos jets F/A-18 dejaron caer bombas de 500 libras (226 kilogramos) sobre una pieza de artillería y el camión que la remolcaba.

En un discurso televisado el jueves por la noche, Obama había amenazado con reanudar la participación militar de Estados Unidos en la añeja guerra sectaria de Irak. Dijo que aviones militares estadounidenses ya habían arrojado ayuda humanitaria a decenas de miles de iraquíes pertenecientes a minorías religiosas refugiados en lo alto de una montaña, rodeados de extremistas y desesperados por obtener agua y comida.

Los yazidíes, que siguen una religión antigua con vínculos con el zoroastrismo, huyeron de sus hogares después que el grupo Estado Islámico emitió un ultimátum para que se convirtieran al islam, pagaran una multa religiosa, huyeran de sus hogares o enfrentaran la muerte.

“Hace unos días, un iraquí en la región le gritó al mundo: ‘Nadie viene a ayudar’. Bien, hoy, Estados Unidos acude a ayudar”, dijo Obama. “También estamos consultando con otros países —y las Naciones Unidas— que han pedido acción para atender esta crisis humanitaria”.

Los anuncios reflejan la mayor participación estadounidense en Irak desde que tropas de Estados Unidos se retiraron a fines de 2011 luego de casi una década de guerra. Obama, que hizo sus declaraciones en un tono sombrío, ha apostado gran parte de su legado como presidente en poner fin a lo que ha llamado la “guerra tonta” en Irak.

Consciente de la aversión de la opinión pública a otra larga guerra, Obama reconoció que la perspectiva de una nueva ronda de acciones militares de Estados Unidos sería una causa de preocupación para muchos estadounidenses. Se comprometió una vez más a no volver a desplegar tropas de combate estadounidenses sobre el terreno en Irak y dijo que no hay una solución militar de Estados Unidos a la crisis.

“Como comandante en jefe, no voy a permitir que Estados Unidos sea arrastrado a luchar otra guerra en Irak”, aseguró Obama.

Aun así, el mandatario esbozó una justificación para los ataques aéreos si los milicianos del Estado Islámico avanzan hacia las tropas estadounidenses en la ciudad norteña de Irbil y el consulado de Estados Unidos en la región curda de Irak. Las tropas fueron enviadas a Irak a principios de este año como parte de la respuesta de la Casa Blanca ante el rápido movimiento del grupo extremista a lo largo de la frontera con Siria y en el interior de Irak.

“Cuando las vidas de ciudadanos estadounidenses están en riesgo, vamos a actuar“, dijo Obama. “Esa es mi responsabilidad como comandante en jefe”.

Dijo que también había autorizado el uso de ataques militares dirigidos si es necesario para ayudar a las fuerzas de seguridad iraquíes a proteger a los civiles.

AP

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Civiles iraquíes huyen de la violencia sectaria en Nínive a bordo de atestada camioneta (Reuters)

08/08/14 (11:59 AM)
París.- Los gobiernos de Francia y de Reino Unido se mostraron hoy a favor de los bombardeos de Estados Unidos contra los yihadistas en Irak.

El presidente de Francia, François Hollande, apoyó los bombardeos estadounidenses sobre posiciones de las milicias del Estado Islámico (EI) en el norte de Irak y llamó a la Unión Europea (UE) a "desempeñar un papel activo" en respuesta la "catastrófica" situación, mencionó Efe.

"La comunidad internacional no puede quedarse sin reaccionar ante las amenazas que representan los avances de ese grupo terrorista, para la población y para la estabilidad, no solamente de Irak sino de toda la región", declaró Hollande en un comunicado desde el Palacio del Elíseo.

Reino Unido, por su parte, descartó sumarse a los bombardeos estadounidenses de posiciones del Estado Islámico en Irak, aunque los aprueba y lanzará comida a quienes escapan de la violencia, agregó AFP.

"Estoy extremadamente preocupado por la horrible situación en Irak y la desesperación de cientos de miles de iraquíes", dijo el primer ministro británico David Cameron en un comunicado desde el número 10 de Downing Street.

"Condeno totalmente los bárbaros ataques terroristas de la organización Estado Islámico (EI) en la región", agregó.

Cameron se felicitó de "la decisión del presidente (de Estados Unidos Barack) Obama de aceptar la solicitud de ayuda del Gobierno iraquí y de lanzar bombardeos puntuales, si es necesario", sentenció.

Sin embargo, un portavoz de la oficina del primer ministro aclaró: "No estamos planeando una intervención militar".

El Gobierno británico reunió a su comité de emergencia el viernes y dio su acuerdo para "ayudar a Estados Unidos en las operaciones humanitarias", dijo el secretario de Defensa, Michael Fallon.

"Ofrecemos ayuda que esperamos lanzar" desde el aire "en los próximos dos días... particularmente para ayudar a quienes están atrapados en las montañas" después de huir de los combates, agregó.

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Milicianos peshmerga caminan por una zona controlada por los yihadistas en Khazer, Irak (AP)

08/08/14 (3:38 PM)
Campamento Jazer, Irak.- Miles de desplazados iraquíes huyeron de su campamento debido al avance de combatientes del grupo extremista Estado Islámico (antes autodenominado Estado Islámico en Irak y el Levante, o EIIL), lo que agravó la crisis humanitaria que se vive en el norte del país, mientras que Estados Unidos llevó a cabo sus primeros bombardeos contra los insurgentes para detener su avance.

A diferencia de la decisión de Washington de invadir Irak hace una década, tanto la entrega de ayuda como la autorización de acciones militares contra el Estado Islámico fueron bien vistos por funcionarios iraquíes y curdos preocupados por el rápido avance de los combatientes, resaltó AP.

"Le damos las gracias a Barack Obama", dijo Jalid Yamal Alber, del Ministerio de Asuntos Religiosos del gobierno curdo en el norte de Irak.

El Ministerio para Inmigración y Desplazados de Irak también vio con agrado la entrega de ayuda. El portavoz ministerial Satar Nawruz dijo que la ayuda llegó "justo a tiempo".

El campamento Jazer, ubicado cerca del frente de batalla entre los militantes y combatientes kurdos, se veía vacío el viernes. El campamento estaba poblado por iraquíes que huyeron de sus ciudades y poblados cuando fueron tomados por combatientes del Estado Islámico las últimas semanas, y en los últimos días se han visto forzados a huir nuevamente.

Los combatientes han estado avanzado desde sus posiciones en el noroeste de Irak rumbo a Erbil, la capital de la región curda autónoma. Por días, ambos bandos se han enfrentado sobre un río en un puente destruido sobre una vía primaria a 40 kilómetros de Erbil.

Al expandirse desde su bastión en Mosul, la segunda ciudad más grande de Irak, los militantes islamistas han capturado varios poblados vecinos e incluso la presa hidroeléctrica más grande del país en las últimas semanas, lo que ha cimentado su control.

Las minorías étnicas y religiosas han huido con la caída de sus poblados.

Los aviones de combate de Estados Unidos arrojaron bombas sobre una pieza de artillería y el camión que la remolcaba después que hizo disparos cerca de donde se encontraba personal de Estados Unidos en las afueras de Erbil, dijo el Pentágono.

Un periodista en Jazer vio al menos otras seis explosiones en el área el viernes, al parecer producto de bombardeos, aunque no se sabe quién los efectuó, ya que la fuerza aérea iraquí también ha estado atacando posiciones del grupo islámico.

Los ataques y la entrega de ayuda humanitaria por parte de Estados Unidos representan el mayor involucramiento norteamericano en Irak desde que las tropas estadounidenses salieron del país a finales de 2011 después de casi una década de guerra.

La medida apunta a ayudar a resolver la creciente crisis generada por los avances del grupo radical suní.

Aviones de carga de Estados Unidos arrojaron el jueves suministros sobre decenas de miles de yazidíes -la mitad de ellos, niños, de acuerdo con la Organización de Naciones Unidas, ONU- que han quedado atrapados en una remota montaña del desierto durante días sin comida ni agua después que los extremistas tomaron su villa, Sinjar, cerca de la frontera siria, de acuerdo con testigos locales que pidieron no ser identificados por razones de seguridad.

Los yazidíes pertenecen a una antigua religión que es considerada hereje por el Estado Islámico. Se calcula que unos 50.000 yazidíes han huido a las montañas de Sinjar.

09 de Agosto, 2014

"Como comandante en jefe no voy a permitir que Estados Unidos sea arrastrado a otra guerra en Irak", aseguró Obama en su mensaje sabatino a la nación.

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Reuters

Washington.- El presidente Barack Obama hizo hoy hincapié en el carácter limitado de la nueva acción militar en Irak, al afirmar que está diseñada estrictamente para proteger a personal estadunidense y prevenir un posible genocidio de minorías religiosas.

"Como comandante en jefe no voy a permitir que Estados Unidos sea arrastrado a otra guerra en Irak", aseguró Obama en su mensaje sabatino a la nación.

El mandatario dijo que "las tropas de combate estadunidenses no volverán a Irak porque Estados Unidos no tiene la solución militar a una crisis mayor que existe" en ese país.

El mensaje de Obama se produce a dos días de que autorizó los ataques aéreos contra el grupo extremista autodenominado Estado Islámico de Irak y el Levante (ISIS por su sigla en inglés) que amenaza la ciudad de Erbil, donde personal de Estados Unidos está ayudando a las fuerzas de seguridad iraquíes.

El ejército de Estados Unidos inició sus ataques aéreos este viernes contra ISIS cerca de la zona de Erbil, la capital de la región autónoma kurda o kurdistán iraquí y sede del gobierno regional kurdo.

El mandatario estadunidense también autorizó el lanzamiento aéreo de ayuda alimentaria y agua para las minorías religiosas que se encuentran atrapadas en la cima de la montaña y en estado de sitio por los militantes.

En su mensaje sabatino, Obama señaló que ha aprobado "ataques aéreos dirigidos para ayudar a las fuerzas iraquíes a romper el asedio y rescatar a estas familias".

Obama dijo que Estados Unidos no puede intervenir en todas las crisis en el mundo, pero "cuando un sinnúmero de personas inocentes se enfrentan a una masacre y cuando tenemos la capacidad de ayudar a prevenirla, Estados Unidos no puede simplemente mirar hacia otro lado".

"Vamos a ayudar a prevenir que estos terroristas tengan un refugio seguro permanente desde donde atacar a Estados Unidos. Y continuaremos instando a las comunidades iraquíes a reconciliarnos, unirnos y luchar contra estos terroristas", subrayó.

Los congresistas estadunidenses expresaron su apoyo a las nuevas operaciones de Estados Unidos, aunque algunos demócratas han exigido mayores detalles sobre la estrategia final de Obama.

Estados Unidos ha acusado al Estado Islámico de asesinar a personas que no comparten su interpretación del Islam sunita.

El grupo extremista ha tomado el control de algunas zonas del este de Siria y del norte y oeste de Irak en los últimos meses, e incluso cristianos iraquíes han tenido que huir después de que ISIS atacó la ciudad de Qaraqosh y les dio el ultimátum de convertise al Islam.

Notimex

Publicado: 9 ago 2014 | 12:41 GMT Última actualización: 9 ago 2014 | 12:41 GMT

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El Estado Islámico publica fotos de soldados decapitados para movilizar a sus miembros a atacar las Embajadas de EE.UU. y matar a civiles y militares estadounidenses en respuesta a los bombardeos de las posiciones del EI en el norte de Irak.

A través de mensajes en foros radicales y en redes sociales los militantes del Estado Islámico (anteriormente conocido como el Estado Islámico de Irak y el Levante, EIIL) están lanzando un grito de guerra a sus miembros en respuesta a los ataques aéreos a la artillería de la organización por parte de las fuerzas de EE.UU. que se llevaron a cabo este viernes, informa 'International Business Times'.

Los miembros de Estado Islámico han abierto una campaña en Twitter con el 'hashtag' "El mensaje de EI a EE.UU." (AmessagefromISIStoUS). En sus mensajes electrónicos los radicales prometen efectuar ataques contra las Embajadas estadounidenses por todo el mundo y matar a ciudadanos de EE.UU., que según EI se han convertido en "objetivos legítimos" de todos los musulmanes en el mundo, y organizar una "barbacoa" con los militares norteamericanos si estos vuelven a aparecer en Irak.


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Los radicales publican imágenes que muestran a soldados estadounidenses hechos pedazos y decapitados durante la campaña militar en Irak, advirtiendo que serán "bienvenidos" por los islamistas, ya que "EI está dispuesto a cortarles la cabeza".
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"El Estado Islámico es nuestro sueño, si se atreve a destruirlo, seremos su pesadilla", advierten los insurgentes al Gobierno estadounidense.
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Los insurgentes del EI advierten que están preparados para efectuar 1.000 actos de terrorismo como el del 11-S si EE.UU. no deja de atacarlos.
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Así, el propagandista de Estado Islámico, Turujman al Asawirti, propone atacar los objetos de interés petrolero de EE.UU. en el Golfo. "La región árabe arderá, los pozos de petróleo y líneas de suministro a Occidente serán volados. Ha empezado una batalla con otro tipo de leones. Hay que matar las mentiras de EE.UU. sobre el petróleo. Hay que cortarles el suministro para poner fin a la vida de EE.UU. Derrumbando su destructiva economía pondremos a EE.UU. de rodillas, y lo haremos a través de las líneas de suministro en el Golfo", advirtió Al Asawirti.

Además, en Twitter otros yihadistas y grupos de medios radicales islámicos han iniciado una campaña con un 'hashtag' que se traduce como 'Obama anuncia el bombardeo del Estado Islámico'. En el marco de esta iniciativa el activista Abu al Ayna al Khorasani, administrador del conocido foro yihadista Shumukh al Islam, llamó a los combatientes a unirse para contraatacar a Washington incluso en su propio territorio y definió los ataques aéreos de EE.UU. de guerra abierta contra el islam.

"El país infiel de EE.UU. bombardea a los monoteístas en Yemen y Somalia y ahora en Irak, y mañana, tal vez en el País de Sham [región histórico-cultural de Oriente Medio]. Es un mensaje claro de que se ha iniciado una guerra contra el islam y los muyahidines. Los muyahidines [luchadores de la yihad] deben esforzarse e intentar ejecutar operaciones proactivas en los propios Estados Unidos para disciplinar a ese país y a sus militares criminales", escribió Abu al Ayna.

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Otro yihadista compartió un montaje de imágenes que tituló 'Un mensaje al presidente Obama' y que muestra un misil disparado a la cabeza del presidente de EE.UU.: "En cuanto a ti, Obama, te hemos preparado un veneno mortal y una espada afilada, y hemos llenado una taza de vientos de muerte y hedor de defunción".

Este viernes, las fuerzas de EE.UU. realizaron un ataque contra milicianos que se encontraban cerca de una base estadounidense en el norte de Irak. Dos aviones F/A-18 lanzaron bombas guiadas por láser de 226 kilos sobre una pieza de artillería móvil cerca de Erbil. El ataque aéreo mató a 45 combatientes del EI e hirió a 60.

Por Tom Cohen y Ben Brumfield
Sábado, 09 de agosto de 2014 a las 08:23

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ISIS ha tomado varias ciudades de Iraq y amenazado a sus habitantes cristianos con matarlos si no se convierten al islam (Reuters).

(CNN) - ¿Es la respuesta a un posible genocidio o una oportunidad para enfrentar a los extremistas sunitas que asolan Iraq?

El presidente de Estados Unidos, Barack Obama, decidió autorizar la ejecución de ataques aéreos en Iraq, con lo que se incrementa la intervención militar en el país del que trató de salir hace más de dos años.

Los primeros ataques estadounidenses ocurrieron el viernes 8 de agosto: unos jets de combate F/A-18 bombardearon las baterías móviles de artillería del Estado Islámico, antes conocido como Estado Islámico en Iraq y Siria o ISIS.

Además de que la presidencia aseguró categóricamente a los estadounidenses que no habrá soldados estadounidenses en el terreno, dio argumentos convincentes para enfrentarse a la amenaza de ISIS.

1. Indicios de genocidio

Obama y la Alta Comisionada de Naciones Unidas para los Derechos Humanos hablan de la posibilidad de genocidio y crímenes contra la humanidad si los combatientes de ISIS masacran a las minorías que huyen de ellos en el norte de Iraq.

En particular se habla de las decenas de miles de yazidíes —una minoría religiosa del norte— que han huido a las montañas, en donde carecen de alimentos y servicios y siguen siendo vulnerables a los ataques de ISIS.

"Conviértanse al islam o mueran" fue el ultimátum que ISIS dio a los cristianos cuando el grupo tomó Qaraqosh, la mayor ciudad yazidí.

Un alto funcionario estadounidense dijo que ISIS hace valer su amenaza al decapitar a la gente que tiene creencias religiosas diferentes y empala las cabezas para aterrorizar a los demás.

Los extremistas también publicaron videos de ejecuciones en internet.

La oleada de masacres por parte del Estado Islámico ha desplazado a cientos de miles de personas, especialmente en Mosul, la mayor ciudad de Iraq. También están atrapadas miles de familias yazidíes; dos aviones militares estadounidenses les arrojaron casi 5,000 litros de agua y 8,000 comidas el jueves 7 de agosto.

El secretario de Estado de Estados Unidos advirtió que "los actos violentos, grotescos y focalizados [del Estado Islámico] tienen todas las señales de alerta y las características del genocidio".

2. Proteger los intereses y el personal estadounidense

"Hacemos lo que sea necesario para proteger a nuestra gente", dijo Obama el jueves por la noche al anunciar que había autorizado los ataques. "Apoyamos a nuestros aliados cuando están en peligro".

Esos dos principios son, en resumen, las razones de sus actos.

Hay cientos de elementos militares en Iraq; muchos son asesores a los que enviaron para trabajar con las autoridades militares iraquíes y kurdas en respuesta a la amenaza de ISIS.

Docenas de ellos se encuentran en Irbil (la mayor ciudad de la región kurda), que se ha vuelto una de las regiones más estables en Iraq y coopera con Estados Unidos. El personal consular estadounidense también está allá.

Los primeros ataques aéreos estadounidenses hicieron blanco en la artillería del Estado Islámico a las afueras de Irbil.

Las autoridades kurdas señalaron que su fuerza de combate, los Peshmerga, pueden contener un avance de ISIS, pero los militantes tienen las armas que les quitaron a las fuerzas iraquíes en las zonas que ya tomaron y han arrebatado ciudades kurdas a los Peshmerga.

2. Enfrentar a los extremistas

Obama sigue presionando para encontrar una solución política a la situación en Iraq y agregó que la acción militar estadounidense no puede resolver el conflicto.

Pero cuando se le preguntó por qué Estados Unidos no había evacuado al personal estadounidense, un alto funcionario dijo que Estados Unidos tiene los medios para protegerlos y prefiere dejar las cosas en claro para el Estado Islámico.

Los críticos más duros en Washington están de acuerdo en que Estados Unidos no quiere otra guerra en Iraq, pero dicen que Estados Unidos puede hacer más.

"Degraden a ISIS" fue el pronunciamiento de los senadores republicanos John McCain y Lindsey Graham. "Hay que detener su expansionismo inherente".

Sugieren que se recurra a una fórmula de ataque directo: armar a todos los aliados que combaten al Estado Islámico —incluso en Siria— y bombardear a sus líderes, sus tropas y sus posiciones, incluso en Siria.

El gobierno de Obama ha presionado a los iraquíes para que formen un nuevo gobierno con mayor representación de los musulmanes sunitas que el actual, a cargo del primer ministro Nuri al Maliki. Muchos musulmanes sunitas insatisfechos se han unido al Estado Islámico.

La Casa Blanca quiere que luego las fuerzas armadas iraquíes lidien la amenaza.

Con información de Chelsea Carter.

We Can’t Have it Both Ways In Iraq

"If we’re not prepared to devise a coherent strategy aimed at defeating ISIS, then no amount of advisors or air strikes will make a difference in the long run. ISIS will simply watch and wait."
Phillip Lohaus

August 8, 2014
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We don’t want to be involved in Iraq, apparently, except when we do. After sending several hundred special operations soldiers to serve in an advisory capacity to the Iraqi government, President Obama promised to guard against mission creep. Just last night, though, the United States conducted its first round of air strikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) near the northern Iraqi city of Erbil. Will this small amount of creep be enough to accomplish the mission?

It depends on what the mission is.

If the scope of the mission is simply to protect American personnel along with those that are trapped on Mount Sinjar, then air strikes might be sufficient. But what next? If our involvement in Iraq is tied to a larger goal of restoring stability, it would be difficult to argue that we can bomb ISIS into submission. Even if we could, little would stop them from retreating to Syria and regrouping, least of all the United States.

As Iraq descends further into chaos, the current administration needs to take a hard look at its long term goals. If the President’s aim is to help restore stability in Iraq, our past experiences have shown that a sustained counter-insurgency campaign is likely required. The verdict is still out as to whether the Iraqi Army or the Kurdish peshmerga, both trained by Americans, will be able to accomplish this, but the prospects so far do not look good.

Relying on US special operations advisers alone to prop up Iraq’s military is not likely to prove sufficient either. The effectiveness of the advisers will naturally be limited by the hesitation of the administration to allow their use outside of command centers, and even if they were allowed to engage in combat, the force multiplying effect of 300 soldiers is not likely to prove sufficient to defeating ISIS.

Take an example from a different conflict. In the early days of the war in Afghanistan, commanders relied heavily on indigenous forces, with small detachments of American special operations soldiers leading the way. At the Battle of Tora Bora, the lack of an adequately sized and resourced force enabled al Qaeda fighters—Osama bin Laden among them—to escape into Pakistan. This occurred even with American special operations forces in the field; our current rules of engagement in Iraq relegate our troops to the sidelines.

If the President’s goal is truly to help turn Iraq back on a course to stability, then it is difficult to see how he might accomplish this given that he has forsworn the use of additional ground troops. The 2007 Iraq surge was pivotal to pushing back the insurgency, and as I detail in a forthcoming monograph, it took the mass brought to bear by the US Marine Corps to successfully rout out insurgents in urban Fallujah. Is there reason to think that the case would be different in urban Mosul or Tikrit?

Right now, the administration is only making things harder for itself. The President’s statement that he will send no additional American troops to Iraq, though politically soothing at home, also reassures ISIS that US involvement will remain limited. At home, the President has yet to explain precisely why the prospect of genocide was not reason enough to stay in Iraq in 2007, but that now, apparently, it is reason enough to strike. Amidst this strategic confusion, it’s no wonder that the President’s foreign policy approval ratings are at an all-time low.

Let’s be clear: no one is advocating for sending hundreds of thousands of troops back to Iraq. But, as evidenced by the presence of American advisers and now air strikes, the decision of whether we should involve ourselves or not has already been made. What’s less clear is whether the President has defined his objectives and whether he is willing to dedicate what is required to achieve them.

Sound policymaking entails defining a political or military goal (the “ends”), assessing the tools available to achieve that goal (the “means”), and determining how the means will be used to achieve the end (the “ways”). If the mission in Iraq is to facilitate stability, then President Obama’s current approach exhibits a disconnect between “ways” and “ends.” If we’re not prepared to devise a coherent strategy aimed at defeating ISIS, then no amount of advisors or air strikes will make a difference in the long run. ISIS will simply watch and wait.

Of the current administration’s efforts, then, we must ask: “to what end?” Beyond the rhetoric, are we actually committed to facilitating Iraq’s return to stability, and if so, are we willing to do what’s necessary to accomplish this goal?

The President made his political career on answering that question with an emphatic “No.” We can’t have it both ways. Which is it now, Mr. President?

Phillip Lohaus is a Research Fellow at the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

Image: U.S. Air Force Flickr.

The Smart Way to Bomb ISIS

Obama is reportedly weighing attacks on the Islamic State. What factors should shape his decision?
John Allen Gay

August 7, 2014
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The Obama administration is reportedly considering airstrikes against the Islamic State after several days of advances by the putative caliphate. Also under consideration is the delivery of humanitarian aid to minority groups that fled as ISIS approached, with thousands reportedly trapped without food or water in rough terrain and scorching heat. France and Turkey may be joining in an American intervention—apparently, the Turks have already been delivering aid.

“Going back into Iraq” will be a tough sell for Obama at any scale. But a confrontation between America and the Islamic State is probably inevitable—if not now, then at some point in the future. ISIS’s gains profoundly destabilized the region, with diplomatic alignments put under pressure, vital infrastructure captured and large refugee flows. Kurdish independence and the broader breakdown of the region’s old colonial borders have both become more likely. The magnetic pull of jihad is growing. Iraq’s internal politics have grown even rougher; externally, Iran and Russia have increased their influence in Baghdad. An effort to contain or push back ISIS, in this light, is certainly worth considering. What factors should shape America’s approach?

Local leadership: Ideally, regional powers would bear most of the burden of an intervention. They have more at stake in the outcome and thus will be better at sustaining involvement. There are other benefits, too. As others have noted, it might not be smart for the United States to take the lead in crushing a proclaimed caliphate: among other things, it fits the narrative pushed by Osama bin Laden and others that attacking and defeating America must be the first step of an Islamist restoration. That narrative has lost its allure, with the Islamic State now the most prominent example of a trend back toward the more typical form of violent jihad: attacking local authorities first. A war initiated by France—rather like the war against Gaddafi—would address the first consideration. A war initiated by Turkey would address both.

The downside of using local actors is that they often have goals that are quite different from our own—that is why, for example, calls for Washington to work with Tehran against ISIS have not been met with much interest on either side. Local actors also lack many of America’s capabilities, limiting their ability to achieve results. Yet there are balances to these drawbacks: Turkey and Iran, for example, have long competed for influence in Northern Iraq, which should be a sign to us that there will be natural obstacles to either gaining dominance. And while Turkey’s military isn’t as adept as America’s, the odds are slim that America would bring the full range of its capabilities to bear on the ISIS problem—or that we’d do so for very long.

The Turks are also more familiar with local politics and local culture—a skill set we lack, and one that is going to be useful in establishing a sustainable, local solution. And while Turkey seems to be growing more autocratic and more unfriendly to America and its allies, it’s not the same kind of danger as ISIS, it’s still a NATO member, and the fact that it’s taking steps in Iraq that parallel our own shows that we still share interests there.

Local actors are, in short, the best hope of a long-term solution, one that not only turns back the fanatics but builds something approximating a stable political system—the lack of that system is, after all, a central factor in ISIS’s success. America does have a role here, though. Iraq, the Kurds, Turkey and Iran all have an ability to shape outcomes—and to thwart them. We’d be a decent mediator. One key limit, though: We’ve been very hesitant to bring Tehran into similar regional security dialogues, such as attempts to find a diplomatic solution in Syria. Iran has enough pull in Baghdad and parts of Kurdistan to make excluding them expensive, but we might try to do that anyway.

Iraqi Sunni grievances: ISIS’s rise cannot be understood without reference to Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki’s utter failure to build a government that crosses sectarian lines. In Sunni areas, Baghdad had come to be seen by many as absent at best, oppressive at worst. Accordingly, the Islamic State benefited from the support of a number of militias whose goals for Iraq differ from its own. But in places where the caliphate’s rule is more secure, it appears to be turning on its allies.

A smart intervention would recognize these dynamics and use them to our advantage. Excising ISIS is preferable to blowing up everyone between Anbar and Diyala who’s holding a black flag. Careful targeting, and perhaps a focus on areas where the Islamic State is fighting with the rest of the Sunni opposition, would be smart. And that needs to be closely followed by an attempt to restore local authority and reduce tensions with Baghdad.

A foolish intervention would ignore the Sunni problem. Our intervention in Libya drifted from a limited effort to keep Gaddafi out of Benghazi to effectively serving as air support for a rebel victory. We don’t want to do the same for an Iraqi army that looks more and more like a Shia militia and an Iranian proxy.

Harassment: One plausible approach to a more limited American intervention would be to focus on interdicting ISIS movements around its territories rather than driving it out of the cities (with a high risk of civilian casualties) or turning it back at the front lines. We’re well-equipped for this. Long-loitering drones can take their time in identifying smaller targets and waiting for the right moment to strike. Our advanced signals intelligence and battle-management systems like the JSTARS can help us spot larger movements and direct attack aircraft to them. ISIS forces look more like a conventional state military than the folks we’ve been fighting for most of the war on terror, and it’s conventional militaries that we’re good at fighting. Of course, they’d quickly become less brazen when the bombs started falling, and we might have fewer easy targets. But they’d be forced to change their habits and move more cautiously, and they’d have more trouble transferring forces between Iraq and Syria. This would make them more vulnerable to forces on the ground.

Needless to say, we’d want to remember that harassing ISIS is a means, not an end, and recognize the risk of being slowly drawn into an indefinite air war. But the mere threat of American airstrikes would force ISIS to change tactics.

End state: The point of intervening is to achieve a resolution. If and when President Obama announces we’ll be acting, he should lay out achievable goals and clear boundaries in order to arrest our nation’s recent tendency to drift into bigger, longer, more expensive wars, wars that develop newer, less attainable goals as they progress. A firm, bold effort to achieve a diplomatic solution among the region’s powers must be the centerpiece of American involvement. It is not clear that such a solution is possible, or that we are capable of facilitating it. We should also be very wary of a defeated ISIS. Surviving fighters, of which there will hopefully be few but probably be many, may make their way home and carry out terrorist attacks. Containing the caliphate, the first step, is thus the only certain step.

John Allen Gay is an assistant managing editor at The National Interest. His book (co-authored with Geoffrey Kemp) War with Iran: Political, Military, and Economic Consequences was released by Rowman and Littlefield in early 2013. He tweets at @JohnAllenGay.

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-smart-way-bomb-isis-11033

Iraq and the Oil Market
How Much Will Prices Rise?
By John Sfakianakis
June 19, 2014
A U.S. Geological Survey satellite image shows smoke rising from the Baiji refinery near Tikrit, June 18, 2014.
A U.S. Geological Survey satellite image shows smoke rising from the Baiji refinery near Tikrit, June 18, 2014. (Courtesy Reuters)

It stands to reason that one of the effects of the turmoil in Iraq will be a change in oil prices. Indeed, the violence in OPEC’s second-largest producer has already sent oil prices to ten-month highs. A recent report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) put it well: “while Iraq’s production is huge, so are the political hurdles it is facing -- and nothing provides a clearer example of that risk than the military campaign.”

Yet this is no time to panic. For one, Iraq is not the only dark cloud hovering over the world oil market. Libya, with its 48 billion barrels of reserves, is pumping a mere ten percent of what it can, the lowest level since September 2011. Sabotage has significantly reduced the flow of oil out of Nigeria as well. And, if Iran and the West can’t reach a deal on Iran’s nuclear program in July, Iran could soon be facing renewed sanctions on its oil industry. In other words, Iraq might be the least of the world’s worries.

Further, despite some weaknesses in production, world oil supply is actually fairly healthy at the moment -- up a million barrels a day over just a year ago. It isn’t because of OPEC. (At a recent meeting in Vienna, OPEC members decided to keep producing 30 million barrels a day, as they have for nearly three years.) Rather, supplies are up because of North American production. In addition, China has diversified its sources of oil imports and stockpiled sizeable amounts of oil in recent months, mitigating the risk of a global shortage from the loss of Iraqi oil production.

That said, if Iraq sees a major supply disruption for a prolonged period -- one that wiped out nearly all of its export capacity over multiple months -- and if other countries in the region continue to see falling production, there are several things that Saudi Arabia, OPEC, and the United States can do to fill the void. Saudi Arabia, the country with the most surplus production capacity, could revert to its traditional role of bringing up extra oil. And, in case of market panic, the United States could release additional oil via its own strategic reserve. Of the two options, Saudi Arabia’s role is more important.

SAUDI SUPPORT

It wasn’t too long ago that Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, was called on to help stabilize the global oil market and contain price increases in the wake of supply shortfalls in Libya. The country increased its production in mid-2011 and then again in 2012. As a result, supply surged and prices started declining after a spike.

This year, too, Saudi Arabia has increased crude oil output to an average of 9.7 million barrels a day, nearly five percent more than the same period in 2013. Even absent added pressure from Iraq, Saudi Arabia will have to continue to ramp up production, since its break-even point -- the price of oil per barrel required for an oil-exporting country to balance its budgets -- is increasing year after year. The kingdom is still sitting on more than 2.7 million barrels a day of unused output capacity -- the result of years of investment in oil infrastructure -- and is committed to adjusting supply as demand requires. No other country could do the same.

Apart from Saudi Arabia, other OPEC countries could play a role in shoring up the world energy market as well -- but on that front things don’t look promising. OPEC members were able to come together to make the recent decision not to change output, but, these days, cooperation is rare. There is no price for oil that suits all the members, since their break-even points vary widely. Those with high points want to see high oil prices, even if very high prices would eventually diminish demand. Those with low break-even points don’t want to see their OPEC quotas being slashed to appease other members.

Barring Kuwait, whose production costs sank in 2013 due to declining investment, the break-even points for all major oil producing countries are estimated to have risen over the last few years. Algeria, Iran, Iraq, and Nigeria all require oil to be above $120 per barrel. As of 2014, Angola, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have a break-even point around the mid-$90 mark. For all of these countries, if oil prices sink, oil production decreases, and expenditures increase, deficits will be eventually settle in.

Beyond Saudi Arabia and OPEC, some have looked to the United States for guidance in the energy market. But the truth is that the United States has little leverage besides diplomacy. For one, the United States cannot match Saudi Arabia’s surge capacity. Although the United States is poised to eventually make billions exporting energy, it has a long way to go before it becomes the supplier of last resort, if it ever does.

Further, the United States’ energy sector does not have a significant impact on Middle Eastern oil markets yet because the United States doesn’t export any oil. Beyond that, the view from the Gulf is that, as the United States is becoming less oil-import-dependent, it doesn’t even need to involve itself in the Middle East as much. Why go to Kirkuk and Mosul when shale plains in Colorado, North Dakota, and Texas beckon? Indeed, there won’t be much for the United States to do if oil markets start to destabilize -- it can deploy its strategic petroleum reserves, which hold about two months’ worth of supply (when accounting for domestic production), but that’s about all.

For now, the Arab Gulf countries will continue to watch and wait as the situation in Iraq plays out. Higher oil prices as well as higher production will provide fiscal support for all. And oil prices aren’t likely to drastically change unless fighting spreads and Iraqi production goes offline for more than just a few months.

INJURED IRAQ

The relatively stable outlook for world oil markets doesn’t translate into good news for Iraq, or the Iraqi government, which depends on oil revenue. The country’s largest oilfields and main export pipeline are in the south, where fighting hasn’t yet spread. But given recent events on the ground -- and since the oil infrastructure was never properly prepared after the Saddam Hussein regime was toppled and would be such a big prize for all the competing groups in Iraq -- even the most recent predictions about Iraq’s future production seem a bit too rosy. As of 2012, the IEA estimated that Iraqi production would grow to six million barrels a day by 2020 from 3.3 million now. But meeting those output targets will be a challenge. The main northern export pipeline between Kirkuk and Ceyhan, in Turkey, has been out of action since it was bombed in March.

And all bets are off if ISIS pushes south toward Baghdad. That will only increase instability in the country and possibly threaten the operations of existing refineries and oilfields. ISIS already controls the 310,000 barrel-a-day Baiji refinery, the country’s biggest. That and other oil and gas infrastructure in ISIS-controlled areas will be vulnerable to repeated attacks, and the risk of disruptions to domestic product supply is high. That is not good news for ExxonMobil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, and Chevron, which have made significant investments in the southern Iraqi fields and the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. All these companies can do is reassure investors that events in Iraq have yet to affect their operations. And deterioration of the security situation won’t make that an easy sell.

In the end, the real winners from the most recent crisis in Iraq might be the Kurds. In recent days, the Kurds have increased their reach into disputed territories, including into resource-rich Kirkuk, which is estimated to hold some 45 billion barrels of crude, and it’s one of the largest frontiers for oil exploration. Kurdistan has pressed ahead with a new pipeline, enabling it to export oil independently to international markets (although Kirkuk oil is unlikely to be produced for now). Much of Iraq’s additional capacity is expected to come from underdeveloped northern and Kurdish regions of the country. But continued fighting between insurgents and the army will make it impossible to develop Iraq’s ability to increase output.

As it stands, the mess in Iraq won’t dramatically alter the oil market unless things get far worse inside the country. Iraq has been in trouble for quite some time -- but the world has only just started to pay attention. The U.S. departure from the country left a political and military vacuum that has been filled by militants. The outlook for Iraq’s oil sector is increasingly nebulous, but Saudi Arabia, with support from OPEC and the United States, will be able to do what is necessary to fill the oil void, if and when there is a need to do so.