The Spread of the Caliphate: The Islamic State (Part 1)

The Islamic State, a hardline Sunni jihadist group that formerly had ties to al Qaeda, has conquered large swathes of Iraq and Syria. Previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the group has announced their intention to reestablish the caliphate and declared their leader, the shadowy Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as the caliph.

Flush with cash and US weapons seized during recent advances in Iraq, the Islamic State’s expansion shows no sign of slowing down. In the first week of August alone, Islamic State fighters have taken over new areas in northern Iraq, encroaching on Kurdish territory and sending Christians and other minorities fleeing as reports of massacres emerged.

Elsewhere in territory it has held for some time, the Islamic State has gone about consolidating power and setting up a government dictated by Sharia law. While the world may not recognize the Islamic State, in the Syrian city of Raqqa, the group is already in the process of building a functioning regime.

VICE News reporter Medyan Dairieh spent three weeks embedded with the Islamic State, gaining unprecedented access to the group in Iraq and Syria as the first and only journalist to document its inner workings. In part one, Dairieh heads to the frontline in Raqqa, where Islamic State fighters are laying siege to the Syrian Army’s division 17 base.

Watch our 5 Part documentary 'The Battle for Iraq' -http://bit.ly/1nmit6C

Read Now: Total Chaos in Northern Iraq as Islamic State Takes Country's Largest Dam - http://bit.ly/1yaqbSO

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Iraq's Night is Long - Mahmoud Darwish

Mahmoud Darwish: Iraq's Night is Long

 

Aug 09 2013by Sinan Antoon سنان انطون

[Mahmoud Darwish. Image from tahrirnews.com]

[Today marks the fifth anniversary of Mahmoud Darwish’s death.]

Iraq’s Night is Long

Mahmoud Darwish

[For Saadi Youssef]

Iraq, Iraq is blood the sun cannot dry

The sun is God’s widow above Iraq

The murdered Iraqi says to those standing at the bridge:

Good Morning, I am still alive.

They say: You are still a dead man searching for his grave

in the corners of cooing

Iraq, Iraq . . . Iraq’s night is long

Dawn breaks only to the murdered

praying half a prayer and never finishing a greeting to anyone

For the Mongols are coming

from the gate of the Caliph’s palace

at the river’s shoulder

The river runs south and carries our dead who stay up,

carries them to the palm trees’ relatives.

Iraq, Iraq is cemeteries that are open, like schools,

to everyone:

Armenian, Turkmen, and Arab. We are all equal in eschatology

There must be a poet who wonders:

Baghdad; How many times will you disappoint myths?

How many times will you make statues for tomorrow?

How many times will you seek to marry the impossible?

Iraq, Iraq, here prophets stand

unable to utter the sky’s name

Who is killing whom in Iraq now?

Victims are shards on the roads and in words

Their names, like their bodies, are bits of disfigured letters

Here prophets stand together unable to utter

the sky’s name and the name of the murdered

Iraq, Iraq. So who are you in the presence of suicide?

I am not I in Iraq. Nor are you you

He is none but another

God has abandoned the perplexed, so who are we?

Who are we? We are nothing but a predicate in the poem:

Iraq’s night is long

Long!

[Translated from the Arabic by Sinan Antoon from Athar al-Farasha (Beirut: Riyad El-Rayyes, 2008)]

Turkmens desperately call on Turkey to be let in

Turkmens seeking refuge in the Kurdish region have not received a warm welcome from the Kurdish government and are reportedly barred from going to Kurdish cities such as Arbil.(Photo: Cihan)
August 09, 2014, Saturday/ 17:00:00/ AYDIN ALBAYRAK / ANKARA
Turkmens fleeing the terrorist group “Islamic State” (IS) in Iraq have been crying out to be granted entry into Turkey, but their calls seem to have fallen to deaf ears in the Turkish capital, which is so far only sending humanitarian aid to those whose lives are in jeopardy.



“We ask Turkey to let us cross the border,” Yasin Muhammed Yunus, a 55-year-old Turkmen who arrived in Turkey about a month ago, told Sunday's Zaman.

Members of the opposition parties have criticized the government for ignoring the plight of Turkmens in Iraq and for denying them entry into Turkey despite the fact that the country is currently hosting around 1.5 million refugees from Syria.

It is estimated that several thousand Turkmens have died since the IS launched its offensive in Iraq. At least 300,000 Turkmens are believed to have fled their homes in the past two months because of the IS terrorist attacks.

Yunus, a civil engineer who was based in Mosul before the IS captured the province in June, was only able to make it to Turkey thanks to a Kurdish friend who works as a civil servant. The peshmerga forces of the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq do not allow Turkmens to pass through the Kurdish region which has a border with Turkey.

In an official car, his friend took him to the Habur customs gate at the Turkish-Iraqi border. Yunus had to leave his family, who are struggling to survive in the difficult conditions in Iraq.

Most recently, in an offensive over last weekend, the IS seized three more towns in northern Iraq. These towns were home to Turkmens and Yazidis, tens of thousands of whom were forced to flee from Zumar and Sinjar to the KRG territory in northern Iraq. The UN has said that some residents remain trapped in a rugged and open area on a nearby mountain that has been surrounded by militants.

The issue was hotly debated in Parliament at the beginning of the week. During the discussion, Sinan Oğan, a deputy from the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), stated that the government is not allowing Turkmens without passports to seek refuge in Turkey. In stark contrast, as was noted by Oğan, Turkey does not demand to see the passports of hundreds of thousands of Syrians fleeing civil war when they arrive at the border.

Sharply criticizing the government, Oğan said: “[Turkmens] say: 'I am also Turkish [and] Muslim. I will come if you open the border.' Why are you closing the border to Turkmens? Are they to blame because they are Turkmens? If they were Arabs, you would have immediately opened the border.”

“Why won't you open the border when Turkmens are being slaughtered there [on the other side of the border]?” Oğan added, and he challenged ruling party deputies to speak out if his remarks were untrue. None of the ruling party deputies disputed Oğan's comments.

Yunus finds it hard to understand why Turkey asks to see fleeing Turkmens' passports, as most Turkmen do not have passports. Most of the people who have been internally displaced in Iraq over the last two months have taken refuge in the Kurdish region. According to Kurdish officials they currently host 1.5 million displaced people. There are not enough camps for the number of refugees, a significant number of whom are Turkmens, and many have no choice but to live in tents or in the open under the cruel summer sun.

Turkmens seeking refuge in the Kurdish region have not received a warm welcome from the Kurdish government and are reportedly barred from going to Kurdish cities such as Arbil.

“We do not want to stay in the Kurdish region because we are not treated well by the Kurds,” Yunus confirmed. “If Kurds do not want to host us [in their region], then they should let us leave and establish a corridor to the Turkish border,” he suggested, hoping that the few Turkmens with a passport would be able to come to Turkey.

After capturing Mosul in June, the IS also seized towns in the surrounding area, where thousands of Turkmens live. Turkmens then fled to the mountains and the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq that borders Mosul province.

Following their expansion into Mosul in mid-June, the IS seized Tal Afar, a city with a population of nearly 400,000 people in northwestern Iraq, the majority of whom are Turkmens.

An aid worker from Kimse Yok Mu (Is Anybody There?) who, during one of his trips to transport aid to Turkmens, had the chance to get information about the Turkmens fleeing the IS occupation of Tal Afar, said Turkmens do not feel safe and just want to get into Turkish territory.

Before Sinjar, a city in northwestern Iraq near the Syrian border, was captured by the IS, Turkmens fleeing the attack on Tal Afar wanted to take refuge in Sinjar. But the Kurdish peshmerga forces controlling the city did not allow the Turkmens to enter the city, which is under the KRG's administration.

Kimse Yok Mu's aid worker, who asked to remain anonymous, said that Turkmens from the Sinjar area had told him that Turkmens had not received all the humanitarian aid sent by Turkey as the aid was distributed by peshmerga forces. “I was told that there are no doctors in the camps where they are kept and their children don't have access to proper medical care,” the aid worker told Sunday's Zaman, adding that Turkmens had said, “Take us to Turkey, we want nothing more than that.”

Having done nothing other than send humanitarian aid to the Turkmens, Turkey is at long last now preparing to establish a campsite for displaced Turkmens near the Turkish border in Iraq.

Turkmen representatives called on Turkey to mobilize the UN to establish a safe zone in northern Iraq where Turkmens would be protected against the threat of the IS. The calls apparently fell on deaf ears in Turkey, and Erşad Salihi, the leader of the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF), submitted a petition to Nikolay Mladenov, a UN representative in Iraq at the beginning of the week. The petition reiterated the request for a UN safe zone in areas populated by Turkmens in Iraq.

During the US occupation of Saddam-era Iraq in the early 1990s, a US-led coalition imposed a buffer zone in northern Iraq to protect Kurds from potential attacks by the Iraqi army.

Noting that Turkmens have been the biggest victims of the IS terrorist attacks, Salihi told the Doğan news agency in Kirkuk: “The land populated by Turkmens is on its way to being depopulated. We are sandwiched between the two sides. Either the armed groups will seize our land or we will, in cooperation with peshmerga [Kurdish military] forces, fight against the armed groups.”

Salihi noted that, unlike the Kurds, Turkmens do not have an armed unit of their own and that he is making these calls on the UN because the Turkmens' survival is being jeopardized by the swift advance of the IS.

Like the MHP, the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) has also criticized the government for ignoring the plight of Turkmens.

Faruk Loğoğlu, deputy chairman of the CHP told Sunday's Zaman: “In terms of humanitarian law and morals and [because] Turkmens are our kinfolk, it is completely the wrong attitude to close the borders to Turkmens. The AK Party [Justice and Development Party] has been insensitive to the plight of Turkmens [in Iraq]. It has left Turkmens to their own devices,” he added.

Professor Suphi Saatçi, a Kirkuk-born scholar from Mimar Sinan University, recently said that Turkey was refusing entry to Turkmens fleeing violence in Iraq. Highlighting the conditions that the Turkmens live under while fleeing the extremists, Saatçi said, “They are living under the harsh sun, without shade, food or water and are left to die right under our noses; we are overwhelmed.”

Although in recent weeks Turkey seems to have increased the amount of humanitarian aid sent to Iraq for Turkmens and others facing threats from the IS, many Turkmen children have died due to heat exposure, diarrhea, malnutrition, thirst and scorpion stings while struggling to stay alive in desert areas where they have had to settle. Many children and their parents are living in extremely unhealthy conditions, sleeping in the open air when they cannot find a place in refugee camps and tent cities, and thus have no access to services or food.

Turkmens in Iraq are disappointed by the government's insensitivity to their plight. “Turkey has not backed us politically. This is what saddens us most,” Riyaz Sarıkahya, a Kirkuk-based leader of the Turkmeneli Party, told Sunday's Zaman.

Although expressing his gratitude for the humanitarian aid Turkey has been sending to Turkmens, Sarıkahya said: “Turkey has not submitted petitions to any international organizations regarding the security of Turkmens. We are deeply disappointed by that.”

‘Bölgede Türkmen izi yok ediliyor’

‘Bölgede Türkmen izi yok ediliyor’

http://www.bizturkmeniz.com/tr/index.php?page=article&id=30636






ZEHRA ONAT

Prof. Dr. Suphi Saatçi, Kerkük doğumlu yüksek mimar ve akademisyen. Saatçi, Kerkük Güldestesi, Kerkük Evleri, Kerkük´ten Derlenen Olay Türküleri ve Kerkük Çocuk Folkloru gibi eserleriyle Kerkük kültürü hakkında önemli eserler verdi. Bölgeyi ve kültürünü yakından tanıyan Saatçi ile Iraklı Türkmenlere yapılan zulmü ve bölgedeki son durumu konuştuk.



Şu anda Iraklı Türkmenlerin bir soykırımla karşı karşıya olduğunu biliyoruz. Türkmenlerin sesini dünyaya duyuran bir kültür adamı olarak olayları nasıl değerlendiriyorsunuz?

Haziran ayından itibaren Irak´ta meydana gelen olaylar, en çok Türkmen toplumuna zarar veriyor. Özellikle IŞİD sanki sadece Türkmenleri hedef seçmiş gibi görünüyor ve şu andaki durum tamamen Türkmenlerin aleyhine gelişiyor. IŞİD Musul´u işgal ettikten sonra bölgede yaşayan Araplara veya Kürtlere ne gibi zararlar verdi? Bunu bilmiyoruz ve böyle bir şey de duymadık. Fakat IŞİD Musul bölgesindeki Türkmenleri yerlerinden ve yuvalarından söküp atmış durumda. Bölgedeki cehennemî sıcaklar altında çölde nereye gideceğini bilemeyen Türkmen aileleri perişan haldeler. Her gün güneşin kavurucu sıcakları altında aç ve susuz kalan Türkmenlerin onlarca çocuğu ve bebeleri ölüyor. Peşmerge kuvvetleri de onları Erbil´e sokmuyor. Düşünün, Erbil Irak´ın bir şehri, Telafer ve Musul da Irak´ın şehirleri ama Kürt yönetimi bunları yabancı kabul ederek Erbil´e sığınmalarına izin vermiyor. Ölümden kaçan bu Türkmen göçmenlerini Türkiye de içeri almıyor. Yerle gök arasında, kızgın güneş altında gölgesiz, gıdasız ve susuz kalan bu insanların burnumuzun dibinde böylesine ölüme terk edilmeleri, insanı kahrediyor. Bunları hadi Türk veya Türkmen kabul etmekten vazgeçtik, bari birer insan olarak kabul edelim, diyoruz.

Orada neler olup bittiğine dair sağlıklı haberler alabiliyor musunuz?

Türkmen bölgelerinden az çok haberler alıyoruz. Özellikle göçmen Türkmenlere gidip durumlarını öğrenen arkadaşlar, bunların fotoğraf ve haberlerini bize ulaştırıyorlar. Esasen bölgeden ne Türkiye ne de dünyanın diğer medya kuruluşları doğru dürüst haber alabiliyor. Bugün Gazze´deki durumu, her saat başı ulaşan görüntü ve haberlerden takip ediyoruz. Fakat her ne hikmetse IŞİD´den ve yaptıklarından haber sızmıyor. Sağlıklı haber alınamayınca, sağlıklı ve doğru yorum ve tahminlerde bulunmak zorlaşıyor.

Bunda sosyal medyanın etkisi ne kadar? Türkmenler bu aracı iyi kullanamıyor ve bu yüzden mi seslerini duyuramıyorlar?

Türkmenler sosyal medyayı kullanıyor. Ancak Türkiye´de asıl televizyon ve haber ajanslarının ele almadığı sorunlara halk da ilgi göstermiyor. Türkiye´de haberleri medyaya artık sadece siyasî iktidar servis ediyor. Hatta belki medyanın malzemesi Başbakan´ın söylediklerinden oluşuyor. Bu yüzden Başbakan´ın gündeminde Türkmenler yoksa medyada da Türkmenler yer alamıyor. Özellikle seçim süreci boyunca en çok tartışılan konular, Başbakan´ın seçim meydanlarında söylediklerinden ibaret. Bu toz duman içinde gariban Türkmen, sesini nasıl duyursun?

Peki, sizce Türkiye neden bu kadar duyarsız?

Türkiye, şu anda IŞİD´in yaptıkları karşısında biraz şaşkın durumda. Herhangi bir diplomatik atak da yapamıyor. Bu yüzden Türkiye beklemede, belki şu aşamada beklemek de en doğrusu, en azından fotoğraf netleşsin. Diğer yandan IŞİD´in elinde 80 dolayında Türk vatandaşı rehine bulunuyor. Ayrıca Türkmenlere insanî yardım gönderiliyor. Devlet dışında başka kuruluşlar da insanî yardım gönderiyor. Bu açıdan Türkmenlere insanî destek var. Burada eksik olan siyasî desteğin olmayışı… Türkiye siyasî destek yapabilir mi? Bence yapabilir.

Türkmenlerin bir kısmı yurtlarını terk etti ve dağlara, çöllere çekildi. Onların hayat şartları ne durumda?

Güneyde Kerkük ve Tuzhurmatu çevresindeki Türkmen bölgelerinde huzursuzluk had safhada. Çevre köylerden Kerkük´e sığınan ve sokaklarda yaşayan yüzlerce Türkmen, köyünden, obasından, yerinden, yurdundan ve evinden kopmuş durumda. Bunlar çocukları ile birlikte sefalete sürüklendiler. Musul yöresi ve Telafer Türkmenleri de çöllere dağıldılar. Bunların bir kısmı Necef ve Kerbela şehirlerine nakledildiler. Topraklarından ayrıldıkları için orada da huzurlu değiller. Ancak ölümden kurtulmak için başka çareleri kalmadı. Anlayacağınız, Türkmenlerin Allah´tan başka kimseleri kalmadı.

Türk kültürü ve tarihi siliniyor!

Türkmenlerin kültür varlıklarına karşı bir saldırı var mı?

Maalesef, Musul´da bin yıllık Nebi Yunus Camii ve içindeki makam yerle bir edildi. Nebi Şit ve Nebi Circis camileri de patlatıldı. Selçuklu dönemi yapılarından İmam Avnüddin ve İmam Yahya Ebu´l-Kasım türbelerinin havaya uçurulduklarının çekimlerini maalesef internette içim burkularak izledim. Musul Ulu Camii gibi Irak´ın en eski minaresine sahip bir yüce mabedin de havaya uçurulacağı söyleniyor. Atabeyler döneminde Musul´da inşa edilen ve kenti süsleyen kültür varlıklarının ve dinî merkezlerin birkaç dakikada yerle bir edildiğini görmek insanın içini kanatıyor. Nebi Circis külliyesi Timur döneminde (14. yy.) bile büyük bir restorasyon geçirmiştir. Yani düşünün, bu zihniyetin, İstanbul´da olsa Fatih´in, Kanuni´nin türbelerini dinamitlerle dümdüz ettiğini gözümüzde canlandıralım.

Bu vahşetin ileride ne gibi kültürel yıkımları olur?

Bu zihniyetin egemen olacağı her yerde türbe, makam ve mezar gibi kültürel varlıklar ve değerli yapılar birer birer yıkılacaktır.

IDP and Camp Locations (as of 7 August 2014)

Control of Terrain in Iraq : August 7? 2014

Isis consolidates
Patrick Cockburn


As the attention of the world focused on Ukraine and Gaza, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis) captured a third of Syria in addition to the quarter of Iraq it had seized in June. The frontiers of the new Caliphate declared by Isis on 29 June are expanding by the day and now cover an area larger than Great Britain and inhabited by at least six million people, a population larger than that of Denmark, Finland or Ireland. In a few weeks of fighting in Syria Isis has established itself as the dominant force in the Syrian opposition, routing the official al-Qaida affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra, in the oil-rich province of Deir Ezzor and executing its local commander as he tried to flee. In northern Syria some five thousand Isis fighters are using tanks and artillery captured from the Iraqi army in Mosul to besiege half a million Kurds in their enclave at Kobani on the Turkish border. In central Syria, near Palmyra, Isis fought the Syrian army as it overran the al-Shaer gasfield, one of the largest in the country, in a surprise assault that left an estimated three hundred soldiers and civilians dead. Repeated government counter-attacks finally retook the gasfield but Isis still controls most of Syria’s oil and gas production. The Caliphate may be poor and isolated but its oil wells and control of crucial roads provide a steady income in addition to the plunder of war.


The birth of the new state is the most radical change to the political geography of the Middle East since the Sykes-Picot Agreement was implemented in the aftermath of the First World War. Yet this explosive transformation has created surprisingly little alarm internationally or even among those in Iraq and Syria not yet under the rule of Isis. Politicians and diplomats tend to treat Isis as if it is a Bedouin raiding party that appears dramatically from the desert, wins spectacular victories and then retreats to its strongholds leaving the status quo little changed. Such a scenario is conceivable but is getting less and less likely as Isis consolidates its hold on its new conquests in an area that may soon stretch from Iran to the Mediterranean.

The very speed and unexpectedness of its rise make it easy for Western and regional leaders to hope that the fall of Isis and the implosion of the Caliphate might be equally sudden and swift. But all the evidence is that this is wishful thinking and the trend is in the other direction, with the opponents of Isis becoming weaker and less capable of resistance: in Iraq the army shows no signs of recovering from its earlier defeats and has failed to launch a single successful counter-attack; in Syria the other opposition groups, including the battle-hardened fighters of al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham, are demoralised and disintegrating as they are squeezed between Isis and the Assad government. Karen Koning Abuzayd, a member of the UN’s Commission of Inquiry in Syria, says that more and more Syrian rebels are defecting to Isis: ‘They see it’s better, these guys are strong, these guys are winning battles, they were taking territory, they have money, they can train us.’ This is bad news for the government, which barely held off an assault in 2012 and 2013 by rebels less well trained, organised and armed than Isis; it will have real difficulties stopping the forces of the Caliphate advancing west.

In Baghdad there was shock and terror on 10 June at the fall of Mosul and as people realised that trucks packed with Isis gunmen were only an hour’s drive away. But instead of assaulting Baghdad, Isis took most of Anbar, the vast Sunni province that sprawls across western Iraq on either side of the Euphrates. In Baghdad, with its mostly Shia population of seven million, people know what to expect if the murderously anti-Shia Isis forces capture the city, but they take heart from the fact that the calamity has not happened yet. ‘We were frightened by the military disaster at first but we Baghdadis have got used to crises over the last 35 years,’ one woman said. Even with Isis at the gates, Iraqi politicians have gone on playing political games as they move ponderously towards replacing the discredited prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki.

‘It is truly surreal,’ a former Iraqi minister said. ‘When you speak to any political leader in Baghdad they talk as if they had not just lost half the country.’ Volunteers had gone to the front after a fatwa from the grand ayatollah, Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most influential Shia cleric. But these militiamen are now streaming back to their homes, complaining that they were half-starved and forced to use their own weapons and buy their own ammunition. The only large-scale counter-attack launched by the regular army and the newly raised Shia militia was a disastrous foray into Tikrit on 15 July that was ambushed and defeated with heavy losses. There is no sign that the dysfunctional nature of the Iraqi army has changed. ‘They were using just one helicopter in support of the troops in Tikrit,’ the former minister said, ‘so I wonder what on earth happened to the 140 helicopters the Iraqi state has bought in recent years?’

Iraqi Turkmen leader slams Turkic states' lack of support

Iraqi Turkmen leader slams Turkic states' lack of support


While thanking the Turkish government for their support, Iraqi Turkmen leader Ersad Salihi slammed the Turkish opposition, Central Asian states and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus for a lack of support.


World Bulletin / News Desk

Iraqi Turkmen Front leader Ersad Salihi has thanked Turkey for its support after the political crisis in Iraq has left the three million-strong community in a three-way cross-fire between the Baghdad-based central government, the Erbil-based Iraqi Kurdish government and rebels belonging to the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

After meeting with Turkey's Foreign Affairs undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioglu in Ankara, Ersad Salihi praised the Turkish government for looking out for the Iraqi Turkmen population, amid criticism from Turkey's right-wing opposition leader Devlet Bahceli that the government was not doing enough to help the ethnic Turkmens of Iraq. Brushing the National Movement Party (MHP) leader's criticism off as being nothing more than the uttering of nationalistic slogans, Salihi accused the Turkish opposition of not doing anything to help their cause and using the situation as a mere propaganda tool for the upcoming Turkish presidential elections.

Salihi also condemned Turkic states in Central Asia for not helping their fellow Turks in Iraq. Blaming Azerbaijan and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) for their silence particularly, Salihi said: “The only country supporting us is Turkey. Despite all our pleas and requests sent via Ankara, the Turkic republics in Central Asia have not supported us, nor have they brought our case to the international arena.”

Referring to the war between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots over four decades ago, Salihi added: “Back in 1974, we told our ethnic brethren in Cyprus that we were ready to fight alongside the Turkish Cypriots,” expressing his disappointment with the TRNC government.

The Iraqi Turkmens, who after Arabs and Kurds make up Iraq's third largest ethnic group, have seen their main city Kirkuk fall under the occupation of the Kurdish Peshmerga (armed forces) ever since ISIL rebels and aligned Sunni Arab tribes overran Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, on June 10.

While the autonomous Kurdish Regional Government of northern Iraq insists that it has only occupied the oil-rich city of Kirkuk as a precaution against advancing ISIL rebels, Iraqi Turkmens, who have made a demand for their own autonomy in the city, fear that the Kurdish forces are there to stay.

As Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani pushes for a referendum in northern Iraqi for independence, the Iraqi Turkmen Front has called to arms to defend themselves against ISIL attacks. A number of Iraqi Turkmens have already fled Tuzkhormatu, Tal Afar and Mosul after the ISIL conducted massacres in the region.


http://www.worldbulletin.net/world/141771/court-orders-arrest-of-former-georgian-president