Kurds

Niqash.org | Sulaymaniyah | – – “Authorities in Iraqi Kurdistan suspect that displaced people are selling their kidneys to feed their families. Problem is, they don’t know how to stop it because there’s nothing illegal about donating a kidney.” The flood of internally displaced people into the semi-autonomous northern region of Iraqi Kurdistan is not […]

Featured

The Great Wall of Turkey? Ankara imagines DMZ w/ Kurds, ISIL

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – So I am going to tell you a story about Turkey, Syria and the United States. It may or may not be true. Its details may or may not have happened, though there is reason to think they did. It is a story. The point is […]

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

As Kobane comes under ISIL attack, Kurds Encircle, cut off “caliphate”

contributors

By Amy Austin Holmes | (Informed Comment) | – – (Kobane, Syria) The liberation of Kobane in late January led to jubilant celebrations almost everywhere. It was both a turning point in the war against Islamic State militants and the beginning of an emancipatory grassroots democratic experiment known as the Rojava Revolution. Now, IS militants […]

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

Her War: Kurdish Women Commandos take on ISIL/ Daesh in Syria

contributors

RT | (Video Report) | – – “In the face of the deadly threat posed by the so-called Islamic State, many Kurdish women decide not to leave their survival to fate. Instead, they fight for their lives and their future. Taking up arms, they join the YPG – Kurdish People’s Protection Units that defend their […]

Iraq

End of Sykes-Picot: Is Independence for Iraqi Kurdistan a Decade Away?

contributors

Niqash.org | Sulaymaniyah | – – As Iraqis and Syrians fight, Kurds are holding elections and drafting laws. After Kurds also won in Turkish elections, nationalists hope the 100th birthday of the Sykes-Picot may be its last and borders will be redrawn. As Turkish voters went to the polling booths, Iraq’s Kurds were watching eagerly. […]

Featured

Pres. Erdogan sees Syrian Kurds’ advance against ISIL as “danger” to Turkey

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The leftist Kurdish Protection Forces (YPG) and their Arab allies, the Euphrates Volcano, continued their assault on Sunday on Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) positions in northern Raqqa Province in Syria, taking the village of Salouk on the outskirts of Tel Abyad. Tel Abyad lies on the border […]

Iraq

Next year in Mosul: Iraqi Kurds cut off ISIL/ Daesh Supply Lines

contributors

VICE News | (Video report) | – “A year after the Islamic State’s lightning conquest of Iraq’s second-largest city of Mosul, the poorly-trained and equipped Kurdish peshmerga forces are the international coalition’s only reliable boots on the ground in northern Iraq. The Pentagon’s hopes of recapturing the city by spring 2015 have been dashed by […]

Human Rights

A Year after the Fall of Mosul, Yazidi Kurdish Survivors of ISIL Massacres Struggle On

contributors

VICE News | (Video Report) | – – “A year after the Islamic State’s lightning conquest of Iraq’s second-largest city of Mosul, the poorly-trained and equipped Kurdish peshmerga forces are the international coalition’s only reliable boots on the ground in northern Iraq. The Pentagon’s hopes of recapturing the city by spring 2015 have been dashed […]

Democracy

Turkey: How Pres. Erdogan damaged the AKP Brand

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Justice and Development Party (AKP) decisively lost its majority on Sunday, falling to only about 40 percent of the vote. The other sixty percent were for the most party divided between the old secular Kemalist party, the Republican People’s Party; a Turkish nationalist-chauvinist party; and […]