Sunni monarchs back YouTube hate preachers: Anti-Shia propaganda threatens a sectarian civil war which will engulf the entire Muslim world

PATRICK COCKBURN



Sunday 29 December 2013

Sunni monarchs back YouTube hate preachers: Anti-Shia propaganda threatens a sectarian civil war which will engulf the entire Muslim world



World View: There is now a pool of jihadis willing to fight and die anywhere





Anti-Shia hate propaganda spread by Sunni religious figures sponsored by, or based in, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies, is creating the ingredients for a sectarian civil war engulfing the entire Muslim world. Iraq and Syria have seen the most violence, with the majority of the 766 civilian fatalities in Iraq this month being Shia pilgrims killed by suicide bombers from the al-Qa'ida umbrella group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis). The anti-Shia hostility of this organisation, now operating from Baghdad to Beirut, is so extreme that last month it had to apologise for beheading one of its own wounded fighters in Aleppo – because he was mistakenly believed to have muttered the name of Shia saints as he lay on a stretcher.


At the beginning of December, al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula killed 53 doctors and nurses and wounded 162 in an attack on a hospital in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, which had been threatened for not taking care of wounded militants by a commentator on an extreme Sunni satellite TV station. Days before the attack, he announced that armies and tribes would assault the hospital "to take revenge for our brothers. We say this and, by the grace of Allah, we will do it".

Skilled use of the internet and access to satellite television funded by or based in Sunni states has been central to the resurgence of al-Qa'ida across the Middle East, to a degree that Western politicians have so far failed to grasp. In the last year, Isis has become the most powerful single rebel military force in Iraq and Syria, partly because of its ability to recruit suicide bombers and fanatical fighters through the social media. Western intelligence agencies, such as the NSA in the US, much criticised for spying on the internet communications of their own citizens, have paid much less attention to open and instantly accessible calls for sectarian murder that are in plain view. Critics say that this is in keeping with a tradition since 9/11 of Western governments not wishing to hold Saudi Arabia or the Gulf monarchies responsible for funding extreme Sunni jihadi groups and propagandists supporting them through private donations.

Satellite television, internet, YouTube and Twitter content, frequently emanating from or financed by oil states in the Arabian peninsula, are at the centre of a campaign to spread sectarian hatred to every corner of the Muslim world, including places where Shia are a vulnerable minority, such as Libya, Tunisia, Egypt and Malaysia. In Benghazi, in effect the capital of eastern Libya, a jihadi group uploaded a video of the execution of an Iraqi professor who admitted to being a Shia, saying they had shot him in revenge for the execution of Sunni militants by the Iraqi government.

YouTube-inspired divisions are not confined to the Middle East: in London's Edgware Road there was a fracas this summer when a Salafi (Sunni fundamentalist) cleric held a rally in the face of objections from local Shia shopkeepers. Impelled by television preachers and the social media, sectarian animosities are deepening among hitherto moderate Sunni and Shia, with one Shia figure in the UK saying that "Even in London you could open the address books of most Sunni without finding any Shia names, and vice versa."

The hate propaganda is often gory and calls openly for religious war. One anti-Shia satellite television station shows a grouping of Shia clerical leaders, mostly from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, labelled as "Satan's assistants". Another asks "Oh Sunni Muslims, how long will you wait when your sons are led to be hanged in Iraq? Is it now time to break the shackles?" A picture of a woman in black walking between what appear to be two militiamen is entitled "Shia men in Syria rape Sunni sisters", and another shows the back of a pick-up truck heaped with dead bodies in uniform, titled "The destiny of Syrian Army and Shia soldiers". Some pictures are intended to intimidate, such as one showing an armed convoy on a road in Yemen, with a message addressed to the Shia saying: "Sunni tribes are on the way".

Sectarian animosities between Sunni and Shia have existed down the centuries, but have greatly intensified since the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the eight-year Iran-Iraq war that followed it. Hatreds increased after the US invasion of Iraq and the takeover of what had been a Sunni-run state under Saddam Hussein by the majority Shia community, which generated a ferocious sectarian civil war that peaked in 2006-07 and ended with a Shia victory. Opposition to Iran and the new Shia-run state of Iraq led to Sunni rulers emphasising the Shia threat. Shia activists point in particular to the establishment in 2009 of two satellite channels, Safa TV and Wesal TV, which they accuse of having strong anti-Shia bias. They say that Saudi clerics have shown great skill in communicating extreme sectarian views through modern communications technology such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, giving them a much wider audience than they had previously enjoyed.

An example of the inflammatory views being pumped out over YouTube is a sermon by Nabil al-Awadi, a cleric in Kuwait, who has 3.4 million followers on Twitter. His speech is devoted to "exposing the biggest conspiracy the Muslim world faces", which turns out to be a plot "conceived in Qom [the Shia holy city in Iran], and handled by sayyids and chiefs in Tehran, to get rid of the nation of Islam, aiming to desecrate the Kaaba [the building in Mecca that is Islam's most sacred site] brick by brick".

Mr Awadi relates that Iraq fell to an enemy whom he does not name, but he clearly means the Shia, often referred to as Safavids after the Iranian dynasty of that name. He says that in Iraq "they were killing the imams with drills in their heads until they are dead and they put the bodies in acid to burn until they died". But the speaker looks forward to a holy war or jihad in Syria, where a great battle for the future of Islam will be fought and won. He warns that "they did not know that jihad is staying and will put fear in their hearts even if they are in Washington, even if they are in London, even if they are in Moscow".

In Egypt, the Shia are only a small minority, but a cleric named Mohamed Zoghbi reacted furiously to the suggestion that they appear on satellite television to debate religious differences. "We would cut off their fingers and cut off their tongues," he said. "I must cut off the Shia breath in Egypt." Bloodthirsty threats like this have great influence on ordinary viewers, since many Egyptians watch religious channels continuously and believe the opinions expressed on them. An example of what this kind of incitement can mean for Shia living in communities where Sunni are the overwhelming majority was demonstrated in June in the small village of Zawyat Abu Musalam, in Giza governorate in Egypt. Some 40 Shia families had previously lived in the village until an enraged mob, led by Salafist sheikhs, burned five houses and lynched four Shia, including a prominent local figure.

Video films of the lynching, which took place in daylight, show the savage and merciless attacks to which Shia minorities in many countries are now being subjected.

Hazem Barakat, an eyewitness and photojournalist, minutely recorded what happened and recorded it on Twitter in real time. "For three weeks, the Salafist sheikhs in the village have been attacking the Shias and accusing them of being infidels and spreading debauchery," he told Ahram Online. Film of the incident shows a man, who looks as if he may already be dead, being dragged through a narrow street in the village by a mob. Among the four dead was 66-year-old Hassan Shehata, a well-known Shia leader who had been twice jailed under Hosni Mubarak for "contempt for religion". Police came to the village but arrived late. "They were just watching the public lynching like everyone else and did not stop anything," said Mr Barakat.

A significant sign of the mood in Egypt is that immediately after the lynchings, a TV host said that Mr Shehata had been killed because he had insulted the Prophet Mohamed's relatives. Several Salafist and conservative Facebook pages are cited by Ahram Online as having lauded the murders, saying that this was the beginning of eliminating all the three million Shia in Egypt.

Given that Shia make up between 150 and 200 million of the 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, they are a small and usually vulnerable minority in all countries aside from Iran and Iraq, though they are numerous in Lebanon, Pakistan and India. In Tunisia last year, a pro-Palestinian march by Shia in the city of Gabes was attacked by Salafists chanting, "There is no god but Allah and the Shia are the enemies of God." Tunisian eyewitnesses cite the influence of Egyptian and Saudi religious channels, combined with the Salafists claiming to be the last defence against an exaggerated threat of a takeover by Iran and the Shia.

The propaganda war became more intense from 2006 on, when there were mass killings of Sunni in Baghdad which, having previously been a mixed city, is now dominated by the Shia, with Sunnis confined to enclaves mostly in the west of the city. The Sunni community in Iraq started a protest movement against persecution and denial of political, social and economic rights in December 2012. As the Iraqi government failed to conciliate the Sunni with concessions, a peaceful protest movement mutated into armed resistance.

The enhanced prestige and popularity of the Shia paramilitary movement Hezbollah, after its success against Israel's air and ground assault in 2006, may also be a reason why Sunni governments tolerated stepped-up sectarian attacks on the Shia. These often take the form of claims that Iran is seeking to take over the region. In Bahrain, the Sunni monarchy repeatedly asserted that it saw an Iranian hand behind the Arab Spring protests in early 2011, though its own international inquiry later found no evidence for this. When President Obama said in September that Bahrain, along with Iraq and Syria, suffered from sectarian tensions, the Bahraini government furiously denied that any such thing was true.

Social media, satellite television, Facebook and YouTube, which were praised at the start of the Arab Spring as the means for a progressive breakthrough for freedom of expression, have turned into channels for instilling hatred and fear. Fighters in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and other countries beset by violence often draw their knowledge of the world from a limited number of fanatical internet preachers and commentators calling for holy war by Sunni against Shia; often such people are crucial in sending young volunteers to fight and die in Syria and Iraq.

A recent study of dead rebel fighters in Syria by Aaron Y Zelin of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation indicates that jihadi death notices revealing country of origin show that 267 came from Saudi Arabia, 201 from Libya, 182 from Tunisia and 95 from Jordan. The great majority had joined Isis and the al-Nusra Front, both of which are highly sectarian organisations. A deeply dangerous development is that the foreign fighters, inspired by film of atrocities and appeals to religious faith, may sign up to go to Syria but often end up as suicide bombers in Iraq, where violence has increased spectacularly in the past 12 months.

There is now a fast-expanding pool of jihadis willing to fight and die anywhere. The Saudis and the Gulf monarchies may find, as happened in Afghanistan 30 years ago, that, by funding or tolerating the dissemination of Sunni-Shia hate, they have created a sectarian Frankenstein's monster of religious fanatics beyond their control.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/sunni-monarchs-back-youtube-hate-preachers-antishia-propaganda-threatens-a-sectarian-civil-war-which-will-engulf-the-entire-muslim-world-9028538.html

Commemorating the anniversary of the killing of Youssef Khorshid Orankay.

Commemorating the anniversary of the killing of Youssef Khorshid Orankay.

On 22nd December 2003 our cousin, Youssef Khorshid Orankay, who was an investigating judge in Mosul, was shot six times in the back by 'unknown gunmen' as he left his office and was walking home.

Youssef was born in Kerkuk in 1947, he was married and had 6 children.

The criminals who carried out his assassination have not been found.

Dangerous times ahead: al qaeda plans to annex one-third of Iraq

niqash | Mustafa Habib | Baghdad | 27.12.2013

The Sunni Muslim extremist group, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, has made it clear that it wants to annex Sunni Muslim areas of Iraq. One of the biggest Iraqi military operations in recent history has now been launched against them. But it doesn’t seem to having any impact on the group.


The last few weeks in Iraq have been good to the extremist organisation, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. The Al-Qaeda affiliated group managed to attack and assassinate a number of high ranking Iraqi army officers and policemen in a number of provinces, including Ninawa, Diyala, Baghdad and Anbar. All of these are known as places where the organisation, also called ISIS or Daash, keeps bases. They are also areas where a large proportion of the population is Sunni Muslim. Al Qaeda is a Sunni Muslim extremist organisation and it often targets Shiite Muslims – although recently it has also attacked Sunni Muslims it considers to be cooperating with the Iraqi government.


A few weeks previously, at the beginning of December, ISIS clearly stated that its ambition was to annex the Anbar province, which shares a border with Syria. The extremist group already has control over various areas in Syria and it seems it wants to add this part of Iraq too.

Attacks in Anbar cities like Fallujah, Qaim and Rutba, have been tactical and well planned and have involved not just the killing of security forces but the occupation or destruction of security forces’ outposts and command centres. This has seen the cities loose contact with one another to some extent.

And this is a bigger problem than it might appear at first. Anbar is one of the biggest provinces in Iraq and actually makes up about a third of the country. It has deserts and rugged mountainous landscape which makes it difficult for regular military forces to control it. The long borders with Syria, from where it’s assumed many of the extremists are coming, are also difficult to control. Additionally much of the population stems from Sunni Muslim tribes or clans who have always lived here and who are generally fairly conservative. Add to their conservative attitudes, the feeling that the Shiite Muslim-led government has marginalized them and persecuted them of late, then it becomes easier for extremist groups like ISIS to bring these tribesmen on side.

“Daash want to separate Anbar and annex it to areas under its control in eastern Syria,” Hakim al-Jumaily, a member of the Parliamentary committee on security and defence, told NIQASH. “But it seems that we have been too late in responding to this threat – our troops should have been preventing the infiltration of militants into the country from the beginning.”

One of the major problems in Anbar is how porous the long border between Iraq and Syria is. “We’ve been appealing to the federal government to control the borders here for the last nine months,” says council member Suhaib al-Rawi, who is on the local security committee. “But members of these extremist groups continue to cross over every day and nobody seems to be able to stop them.”

“The security forces here in Anbar have acted too slowly and the Iraqi army is also weak,” al-Rawi told NIQASH. “The result is that today members of Al Qaeda are crossing into Iraq, living with us, resting in their desert camps and then killing us.”

From the beginning of this wave of activity in Iraq, ISIS’ strategy seems to have had two major goals. Firstly the rehabilitation of military-style camps in Iraq in places like the Anbar desert region, northern parts of Salahaddin province, eastern parts of Mosul and northern parts of Babel. The groups had these camps previously but had been driven out over the past decade. Now however they are returning.

Secondly, the organisation has continued to wage a kind of guerrilla war on the streets of Iraq’s cities – it’s been successful in launching simultaneous waves of suicide bombings.

As the New York Times noted recently the group is sending suicide bombers into Iraq “at a rate of 30 to 40 a month, using them against Shiites but also against Sunnis who are reluctant to cede control”.

Local security analyst Asad al-Yasiri believes the guerrilla war has distracted Iraqi police and army from the construction of the camps and the border zone infiltration.

 

“Daash [ISIS] has been doing what it is known for around the world, with its guerrilla tactics,” al-Yasiri says. “This is all about chipping away at people’s morale with bombing and murder so that when the time comes for Daash to take control, they are ready to surrender.”

A senior office in the Iraqi army, who did not want to be named for security reasons, told NIQASH that the current operation in Anbar was the biggest military effort in Iraq since US troops withdrew in 2011.Recently the US has been aiding the Iraqi government in this by sending equipment to help in the fight against the extremists, the New York Times reported.

“We were very surprised by the size and number of Daash camps in Anbar,” he continued. “Three days ago we destroyed one of the camps and we found documents there that indicated there were 11 camps in four provinces.”

The camps were empty and the officer says they suspect the militants fled back to the Syrian side of the border using tunnels under the border crossings, some of them natural and others man-made.


However it doesn’t seem as though the pressure being exerted on ISIS in Anbar is preventing it from carrying out other deadly missions. Recent events include the storming of a television channel in Tikrit, the capital of Salahaddin, that saw five journalists killed as well as an attack in Abu Ghraib near Baghdad that saw one commander and several officers and soldiers, killed.

It seems clear to many that the Iraqi military alone cannot defeat the extremist group, as it appears to have many cells around the country as well as plenty of back up plans. Many opposition politicians have pointed out that even the might of the much better armed, and more professional US army was unable to make much headway against the Sunni Muslim extremist group - until they enlisted the aid of local Sunni Muslims.

At one stage the so-called Awakening Movement - a home grown initiative dating back to 2006, which saw tribal groups with a Sunni Muslim background halting their fight against the US military and instead taking up arms against Sunni Muslim extremists – was considered the US military's magic bullet in Iraq. But more recently, and particularly since the withdrawal of US troops, the Awakening Movement has been neglected by the Iraqi government.

“The government needs to regain the trust of Sunni Muslims if it wants to fight Al Qaeda,” MP Shwan Mohammed Taha, a member of the Parliamentary committee on security and defence, said. “Sometimes a political solution like this can have a magical effect.”

Even US politicians apparently told current Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that this was a good idea, especially after ongoing demonstrations were held in many Sunni Muslim parts of Iraq to condemn al-Maliki’s policies.

However al-Maliki doesn’t seem to be taking a lot of notice of that advice. He recently said that the Iraqi military would need to move against Sunni Muslim protestors forcefully because the protests had become a hub for Al Qaeda extremists.

"I say clearly and honestly that the sit-in site in Anbar has turned into a headquarters for the leadership of Al-Qaeda,” news agency AFP reported al-Maliki as saying on state television last week. He also gave the protestors a deadline to leave. But it seems certain that if al-Maliki, a Shiite Muslim politician, sends the army in against the Sunni Muslim protestors this will further inflame sectarian tension in Iraq.

As AFP also reported al-Maliki’s comments came after an incident that saw senior military staff killed in an ambush when they went to visit one of the ISIS camps in Anbar after it had been bombed from the air. Although the camp was empty ISIS members had left booby traps. So possibly al-Maliki was reacting to this event.

Still, it is clear that, as the country readies itself for general elections in early 2014, with all of the factions in play, both political and military, both inside and outside the borders, it still seems as though Iraq is on the verge of a very dangerous four months.

http://www.niqash.org/articles/?id=3352

Merry Christmas

Wishing a joyful Christmas to all my Christian friends

IRAQ BODY COUNT: War not over with dark cloud of violence hanging over civilian life

Published on 23 Dec 2013

Investigative group, Iraq Body Count, has been collecting data on the casualties in the embattled country for years now.

Lily Hamourtziadou is a leading researcher and editor for the organization.

KERKÜK TÜRKMEN CEPHESİ LİSTESİ AÇIKLANDI

16 ARALIK 2013

Irak Türkmen Cephesi’nin (ITC) 30 Nisan 2014 tarihinde yapılacak olan genel seçimlere “Kerkük Türkmen Cephesi Listesi” adı altında katılacağı açıklandı.

Kerkük’te bugün düzenlenen basın toplantısında, Kerkük Türkmen Cephesi Listesi’nde Irak Türkmen Cephesi, Ammar El Hakim başkanlığındaki Yüksek İslami Konseyi, Türkmen Vefa Hareketi, Türkmeneli Partisi, Türkmen Adalet Partisi, Türkmen Karar Partisi, Milliyetçi Türkmen Hareketi, Milliyetçi Türkmenler Topluluğu ve Irak Demokratlar Hareketi’nin yer aldığı açıklandı.

Toplantıda, siyasilerden istenen birlik ve beraberliğin sağlandığı belirtilerek, milletin de sandığa giderek görevini yerine getirmesi istendi. Seçmenlere, “Birlik istediniz, buyurun birlik. Artık sıra sizdedir. Hepinizi sandık başına davet ediyoruz” çağrısı yapıldı.

Basın toplantısına, Kerkük Türkmen Cephesi Listesi’ni oluşturan siyasi parti ve hareketlerin liderleri ile temsilcileri katıldılar.

Turkmen district of Tuz Khurmatu wants to join Kerkuk province

A man holds rosary beads as he inspects the ruins of a popular coffee shop after a suicide bomb attack in Tuz Khormato, 170 km (106 miles) north of Baghdad, July 17, 2006. (photo by REUTERS/Slahaldeen Rasheed)

Author Omar al-JaffalPosted December 16, 2013

Translator(s)Sami-Joe Abboud

Minorities in Iraq are once again demanding autonomous areas or to have their districts joined to other provinces as a wave of attacks targets them in Salahuddin, home to a Turkmen minority, and Ninevah, home to minorities such as the Christians and the Shabak

Tuz Khormato, located in Salahuddin province, shocked everyone when the district council announced during a Nov. 25 news conference that it wanted the district to join Kirkuk province, instead of being affiliated with Salahuddin. Tuz Khormato has not been calm for years, and on a monthly basis the district is subject to bombings carried out by al-Qaeda or other groups the central government knows nothing about.

The provincial council made this call in light of the failure of both the Salahuddin provincial administration and the security agencies to protect the lives of citizens and to prevent terrorist groups from targeting them.

Vice President of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region Kosrat Rasul Ali welcomed this decision and stressed that he is in favor of returning the town to the province of Kirkuk.

The predominantly Turkmen district of Tuz Khormato was part of Kirkuk province until 1976. The regime of Saddam Hussein, however, detached the district from Kirkuk province from its four sides — Amerli, Bestamli, Suleiman Beik and Qadri Kerm — and appended it to Salahuddin province, which had been recently created under a presidential decree.

Political blocs had always called for declaring Tuz Khormato a disaster zone due to it being continuously bombed by al-Qaeda, as well as the lack of medical and educational services. Ali Al-Shalah, a member of the parliamentary State of Law Coalition, described the issue of returning Tuz Khormato to Kirkuk as “delicate.”

Shalah told Al-Monitor, “All of the political blocs need to give their opinion about this issue,” and stressed, “The opinions of those living in Tuz Khormato should be a priority, as they are the ones affected.”

A member of the Kurdistan Alliance, Hamid Bafi, pointed out, “Tuz Khormato was previously a part of Kirkuk province, and [this issue] must be reviewed within the framework of the administrative border law for these regions. These borders were manipulated by the former regime based on sectarian, political, ethnic and non-administrative grounds.”

Bafi told Al-Monitor, “Tuz Khormato is one of the disputed areas,” and pointed out, “The central government ought to address these areas, which have been unfairly treated by the former regime through Article 140 of the Constitution.”

Article 140, which relates to resolving the issue of Kirkuk and determining whether it will join the Iraqi Kurdistan Region as well as the powers of the Iraqi president, the powers of the Kurdistan Region and the distribution of wealth, is one of the most prominent points of contention between the central government in Baghdad and the regional government in Erbil.

“The central government should make haste to address this issue so that the residents can determine their fate,” Bafi said. He suggested, “Things staying the same in this region will not lead to the stability of Iraq,” adding, “This may affect relations between the Kurdistan Region and [our] brothers in Baghdad.”

Legal expert Tareq Harb told Al-Monitor, “No district council or provincial council in Iraq should issue a resolution to separate or attach a part of a province to or from another province, as district councils are not elected, but rather appointed.”

Meanwhile, Fawzi Akram Tarzi, a member of the National Turkmen Alliance, which is part of the Ahrar bloc, said, “Calling for attaching Tuz Khormato to Kirkuk is aimed at putting pressure on the central government, in order to rescue the district from the disaster it is experiencing.”

Tarzi told Al-Monitor, “The Turkmen have been the target of genocide since 2003 up to this very day, across all of the Turkmen regions without exception, especially in the ‘disaster zone’ of Tuz Khormato.” He indicated, “Some people in Tuz Khormato want to turn this district into a province in order to secure infrastructure, among other things.”

On Nov. 25, Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister Hussain al-Shahristani formed a higher committee to discuss the implications of the security situation in Tuz Khormato, and stressed that the government will do all it can to maintain security in the district. A Turkmen deputy, however, accused him of neglecting the district’s security.




Published in al-monitor

Ankara Extends Full Support to Iraqi Turkmen

http://www.orsam.org.tr/en/showArticle.aspx?ID=2540

Ankara Extends Full Support to Iraqi Turkmen
Hasan Kanbolat, ORSAM Director

On the night of Dec. 6 I met with Erşad Salihi, Kirkuk deputy and leader of the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITC), and the ITC's executive board members in Ankara.

The weather was freezing. Salihi was treating himself to a nice dinner after some successful talks. The meeting between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the ITC delegation, as well as the joint press conference with Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, had pleased the ITC delegation. Salihi expressed his relief at Ankara's acknowledgement of his position as leader of the Turkmen. As a result, he raised the issue of the Iraqi parliamentary elections to be held on April 30, 2014. He received strong support from Ankara before the general elections in Iraq.

The Iraqi Turkmen are a priority for Turkey's foreign policy. Turkey pays great attention to the ITC, the most renowned and respected political representative of the Iraqi Turkmen. These actions further support and confirm Iraq's independence and territorial integrity.

On Dec. 5, Erdoğan received the ITC delegation headed by Salihi in his office at the İstanbul Haliç Convention Center. Erdoğan and Salihi had met before, in 2006. This meeting, after seven years, was quite amiable. The prime minister, noting that the upcoming elections in Iraq are extremely important for domestic political considerations as well as regional stability, underlined that the ITC leadership also has a great responsibility in this process. Erdoğan stressed that the protection of the rights and interests of the Turkmen in Iraq is an integral part of Turkey's Iraqi policy and that he raised this issue in their meetings and talks with the central Iraqi government as well as the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

Davutoğlu met with Salihi and the ITC's board members on Dec. 6 at the Foreign Ministry. Speaking at the joint press conference held after the meeting, Davutoğlu stressed that the Turkmen are one of the major communities of Iraq under the national constitution and international legal agreements. He further underlined that it is important for the Turkmen to be able to speak their language and exercise their fundamental rights in the fields of education and local administration. The foreign minister also said the Turkmen have a crucial position in Iraq and that their interaction with other ethnic groups is vitally important, as it will contribute to the well-being of Iraq as a whole.

There are ongoing disputes over Turkmen-populated areas from Diyala province to Mosul. Despite these issues, the Turkmen have no armed forces or militias to protect themselves and their lands. This is why the Turkmen are the most frequently victimized community in Iraq. There have been many attacks against the Turkmen in Kirkuk, Tal Afar, Mosul and Tuz Khormato, as well as other predominantly Turkmen areas, and Turkmen leaders, politicians and businessmen have been assassinated. In June, ITC Deputy Chairman Ali Haşim Muhtaroğlu was killed in an attack. In August, an attack was staged against ITC Mosul Province Chairman Muhammed Ali Efendioğlu and Mosul Provincial Assembly member Lokman Necim.

On Dec. 1, an attack took place on Salihi's convoy in Tuz Khormato. These attacks show that the Turkmen have become the direct targets of armed assaults. The attacks directed against Turkmen leaders this year also show that the violence against them has become systematic. This violence seeks to minimize the political and demographic impact and influence of the Turkmen community in Iraq.





10 December 2013