Iraqi Kurdistan's President Masoud Barzani resigns after Independence push backfired

[Islam Imamate]

I would have settled for us supporting the Kurds when Saddam counterattacked.

We did, with a NFZ that allowed them to push Saddam's forces out of most of Iraqi Kurdistan.

 

[hillelslovak87]

We did, with a NFZ that allowed them to push Saddam's forces out of most of Iraqi Kurdistan.

The no fly zone left out Iraqi attack chopper, choppers our leaders were told were for humanitarian aid. Our leaders sat by while he brutalized them with these very choppers.

 

[Islam Imamate]

The no fly zone left out Iraqi attack chopper, choppers our leaders were told were for humanitarian aid. Our leaders sat by while he brutalized them with these very choppers.

But it neutralized the rest of his air force which is a big deal. As I said, the Kurds were able to push Saddam's forces out of their regions despite the attack helicopters. After that they established their own autonomous zone and held elections.

So again, what more what you have wanted done? Taking out the attack helicopters? How? Serious question, I don't know about the minutia of military tactics and strategy. Was that even possible or reasonable at the time for the US, especially given the fact that what they did do essentially accomplished its purpose and more?

 

[hillelslovak87]

But it neutralized the rest of his air force which is a big deal. As I said, the Kurds were able to push Saddam's forces out of their regions despite the attack helicopters. After that they established their own autonomous zone and held elections.

So again, what more what you have wanted done? Taking out the attack helicopters? How? Serious question, I don't know about the minutia of military tactics and strategy. Was that even possible or reasonable at the time for the US, especially given the fact that what they did do essentially accomplished its purpose and more?

It would be nice for our leaders to not believe an outlaw madman when he says he'll use his attack choppers for aid against peoples he swore to destroy. And if we did fall for it, maybe we should have helped the people he was razing when it turned out he was in fact doing it.

 

[Islam Imamate]

It would be nice for our leaders to not believe an outlaw madman when he says he'll use his attack choppers for aid against peoples he swore to destroy. And if we did fall for it, maybe we should have helped the people he was razing when it turned out he was in fact doing it.

We did help them, helped them plenty. The attack helicopters are obviously no joke but as I said, in the end the Kurds ejected Saddam's forces from their territory. We did a lot for them at that time and it laid the groundwork for their increasing independence. Maybe the US could've done more but its not as if we abandoned them.

 

[Arkain2K]

Iraq Plan to Fix Oil Pipeline to Turkey Bypasses, Isolates Kurds
By Khalid Al Ansary and Mohammed Sergie | October 10, 2017, 4:44 AM PDT
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Iraq’s oil minister ordered urgent repairs to a disused pipeline from northern fields to a Turkish port, a step that could eliminate the central government’s need to export crude via Iraq’s Kurdish region and further isolate the independence-seeking Kurds.

Minister Jabbar al-Luaibi directed the North Oil Co. and State Co. for Oil Projects to complete repairs on the pipeline from Kirkuk to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, the ministry said in an emailed statement. The link, once an artery for crude exports from Iraq’s oldest producing fields, hasn’t operated for years due to sabotage in areas occupied until recently by Islamic State militants.

Iraq wants to restore the pipeline’s export capacity of 250,000 to 400,000 barrels a day and possibly boost volumes in the future, the ministry said. Iraqi security forces regained control of the pipeline and surrounding territory after advancing against Islamic State late last year. The oil ministry didn’t say when repairs on the link, which would connect at the border with a Turkish pipeline, would be completed.

Iraq’s prime minister Haider Al-Abadi said last month that neighboring Turkey supports Iraqi central government control over all crude that the OPEC nation exports to Ceyhan though the Turkish-controlled pipeline. His comments suggested that the Turks may be reviewing their policy of letting Iraq’s landlocked Kurds export oil independently through the Turkish network. Relations between the semi-autonomous Kurds and the central government in Baghdad have frayed since the Kurds voted on Sept. 25 for independence.

The non-binding independence referendum puts at risk the Kurdistan Regional Government’s own oil exports via Turkey. The central government has been using the Kurdish link to ship crude from deposits it controls at Kirkuk.

The central government has long insisted that its crude-marketing agency SOMO has sole authority to export oil produced anywhere within Iraq’s borders. Iraq is the second-biggest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Crude has been flowing normally through the Kurdish link to Turkey. The KRG-operated pipeline currently exports 600,000 barrels a day, a person with knowledge of the situation said, asking not to be identified because he’s not authorized to speak to news media.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...il-pipeline-to-turkey-bypasses-isolates-kurds

 

[Arkain2K]

Iraqi Forces Sweep Into Kirkuk
By DAVID ZUCCHINO | OCT. 16, 2017

​

KIRKUK, Iraq — After weeks of threats and posturing, the Iraqi government carried out a military assault on Monday to curb the independence drive by the nation’s Kurdish minority, wresting oil fields and a contested city from separatists pushing to break away from Iraq.

In deadly clashes that pitted two crucial American allies against each other, government troops seized the vital city of Kirkuk and surrounding oil fields, ousting the Kurdish forces who had controlled the region for three years in their effort to build an independent nation in the northern third of Iraq.

The Kurds voted overwhelmingly for independence from Iraq in a referendum three weeks ago. The United States, Baghdad and most countries in the region had condemned the vote, fearing it would fuel ethnic divisions, lead to the break up of Iraq and hobble the fight against the Islamic State.

Iraqi government troops and the Kurdish forces, known as pesh merga, are both essential elements of the American-led coalition battling the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. Both forces are supplied and trained by the United States.

Despite the resounding success of the referendum, Iraqi forces were able to take Kirkuk in a day and with little fight, partly because it is a multiethnic city of Kurds, Turkmens and Arabs, and partly because the Kurds themselves were divided.

Baghdad had forged an agreement with the Kurdish opposition faction that controlled most of the strategic points of Kirkuk, allowing government forces to sweep into much of the city without firing a shot. But skirmishes with another Kurdish faction left nearly 30 dead and dozens wounded, according to local hospitals.

As Iraqi troops rolled into the city of about one million, Arab and Turkmen residents fired weapons into the air in celebration.

Cheering crowds looked on as Iraqi forces removed a Kurdish flag that had flown over the Kirkuk governor’s compound and left intact an Iraqi flag mounted beside it, local officials said. Iraqi troops drove through the city, removing pesh merga flags and banners and replacing them with Iraqi flags.

While Iraq’s future remains far from secure, the momentum has clearly swung in Baghdad’s favor. Its forces have now beaten back existential challenges on two fronts, pushing the Islamic State out of major cities and retaking a critical oil region from the Kurds.

Neither battle is over. But the Islamic State, which three years ago controlled a third of the country, has been reduced to a handful of desert outposts and a small city on the Syrian border, while the Kurds may now have to defer their independence dreams.

The referendum, which had Kurds celebrating in the streets three weeks ago, has now clearly backfired. The Kurdish region depends heavily on oil revenue, roughly half of it from the Kirkuk region, and its independence vote alienated the United States and angered its neighbors.

“They may have made a miscalculation of historic proportions by proceeding with the referendum over the objections of just about everyone who counts,” said Joost Hiltermann, an analyst with the International Crisis Group.

The Kirkuk operation also exposed deep divisions within the Kurdish command, as fighters loyal to a Kurdish opposition party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, agreed to make way for the advancing Iraqi forces even as other fighters loyal to the governing Kurdistan Democratic Party continued to resist.

The Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani spearheaded the referendum, which most Kurds saw as a historic step toward achieving the national dream of an independent homeland. But critics accused Mr. Barzani of staging the vote to deflect attention from the Kurdish region’s troubled economy and what they consider to be Mr. Barzani’s authoritarian rule.

Moreover, and especially irking to Baghdad, the vote included disputed territory outside the boundaries of the autonomous Kurdish region, including Kirkuk and the surrounding oil fields. Kurdish forces seized that territory in 2014 after Iraqi troops fled an Islamic State assault, but Baghdad has never accepted Kurdish control there.

After the referendum vote, Iraqi authorities gave the Kurds an ultimatum, to annul the vote or face military action. But over the last few days, even as Iraq massed troops in the Kirkuk region, Baghdad insisted it had no plans to carry out a military assault on Kirkuk.

As recently as Friday, the Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, said the military “cannot and will not attack our citizens, whether Arab or Kurd,” and dismissed reports to the contrary as “fake news.”

In the last few days, emissaries from Baghdad conducted secret talks with Kurdish opposition forces to negotiate their withdrawal.

Wista Raool, commander of opposition pesh merga forces south of Kirkuk, said the opposition sought to return the oil fields to the federal government. He accused Mr. Barzani and his party of “stealing” the oil from the Iraqi government.

Still, fighting broke out between advancing government forces and pesh merga fighters from Mr. Barzani’s faction.

A Kurdish commander, Gen. Mohammed Raiger, said his forces had mounted a counterattack about 15 miles west of the city. He said reinforcements with “sophisticated weapons” had arrived to support Kurdish fighters in the area.

A statement by the Kurdish government’s security council said pesh merga fighters had destroyed five American-supplied Humvees used by Iraqi forces, and would continue to resist them.

According to reports from hospitals in Kirkuk Province, 22 pesh merga fighters were killed in fighting on Monday, along with 7 Iraqi soldiers. Another 11 Kurdish fighters were wounded, as well as 4 Iraqi soldiers and 54 civilians.

In a statement Monday afternoon, the American-led coalition downplayed any skirmishes as accidental. The clashes were precipitated by “a misunderstanding,” the statement said, and were “not deliberate as two elements tried to link up under limited visibility conditions” at night.

Col. Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the coalition in Baghdad, said American forces in the area were watching the situation, but were not involved in the fighting.

“We are monitoring the situation closely and strongly urge all sides to avoid additional escalatory actions,” he said. “We opposed violence from any party, and urge against destabilizing actions that distract from the fight against ISIS and further undermine Iraq’s stability.”

While Washington has called for calm, analysts said the United States was content to sit this one out, still fuming that Mr. Barzani had turned down an American offer to preside over open-ended negotiations with Baghdad if the Kurds called off the vote. Analysts said the United States sat back quietly as Mr. Barzani’s position eroded in the face of retaliation by Baghdad, which first ended international flights to the Kurdish region and then cut a deal with his rivals to take Kirkuk.

By Monday night, the Barzani government had made no public statement on the day’s events.

Officials in Baghdad said the provincial governor, Najmaldin O. Karim, had left Kirkuk for Erbil, the capital of the autonomous region. Mr. Karim could not be reached for comment. He was dismissed by Baghdad earlier this year, but remained in office because Kurdish fighters controlled the city.

Military commanders in Baghdad said their troops had taken control of an industrial district on the western edge of Kirkuk, a power plant and refinery adjacent to the oil fields outside the city and a military airport west of the city.

Iraqi troops also removed a Kurdish flag from a large statue of a pesh merga fighter that Kurdish leaders had erected at the gates to the city. They raised an Iraqi flag in its place, according to local officials, in line with an order from Mr. Abadi for troops to raise the Iraqi flag in all disputed areas reclaimed by government forces.

The big question now is whether forces loyal to Mr. Barzani will fight on or back off.

On Monday, his forces remained dug into positions near oil fields northwest of the city that the Kurds have controlled since 2014.

The commander there, Kamal Karkokly, said in an interview at his command post on Sunday that his fighters would not surrender their positions.

“We have enough weapons,” he said. “We can fight as long as we have to.”

If Mr. Barzani’s forces continue to resist, Mr. Hiltermann said, “It wouldn’t be their first miscalculation in the last 30 days.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/16/world/middleeast/kirkuk-iraq-kurds.html

 

[Arkain2K]

Why the battle over the Iraqi city of Kirkuk matters
By Philip Issa, associated press | BAGHDAD — Oct 16, 2017

Three weeks after Iraq's Kurdish region held a controversial referendum on independence, Iraqi forces entered the disputed northern city of Kirkuk on Monday, forcing Kurdish fighters to withdraw. Here's what you need to know:

WHY?

Kirkuk has found itself at the heart of a long-running dispute between Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region and its central government that reached fever pitch after Kurdish authorities staged a non-binding independence vote in late September.

The city sits on the edge of an expansive oil field that can be tapped for about a half million barrels per day. And while Iraq's oil revenues are supposed to be shared, disputes among the provinces have often held up transfers, leading parties to find leverage in holding the fields.

When Iraq's armed forces crumbled in the face of an advance by Islamic State group in 2014, Kurdish forces moved into Kirkuk and secured the city and its surrounding oil wells. The city falls 32 kilometers (20 miles) outside the Kurds' autonomous region in northeast Iraq.

Baghdad insisted the city and its province be returned, but matters came to a head when the Kurdish authorities expanded their referendum to include Kirkuk. To Baghdad, it looked like a provocation that underscored what it sees as unchecked Kurdish expansionism. The city of more than one million is home to a mix of Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen, as well as Christians and Sunni and Shiite Muslims.

HOW DID IT HAPPEN?

Swiftly. Iraq's army, its anti-terrorism forces and the federal police began their operations before dawn Monday. By late afternoon, they were in control of several oil and gas facilities, the airport, and a nearby military base.

Kurdish officials accused the Iraqi army of carrying out a "major, multi-prong attack," and reported heavy clashes on the city's outskirts, but a spokesman for Iraq's state-backed militias said they encountered little resistance. The vastly outmatched Kurdish fighters withdrew from the city en masse, and journalists were left to wander into abandoned barracks and administrative buildings.

Local police forces remained in the city at the invitation of Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi who called on civil servants to stay on and serve their constituents. He has said he wants to share administration of the city with the Kurdish authorities and called on Kurdish forces, known as the peshmerga, to serve under the umbrella of Iraq's unified military command.

"We have only acted to fulfill our constitutional duty and extend the federal authority and impose security and protect the national wealth in this city," said Abadi.

Abadi, in a bid to allay concerns of sectarian strife, promised the country's predominantly Shiite Popular Mobilization Forces would not enter Kirkuk, but Associated Press reporters saw Turkmen militiamen taking up posts in the western part of the city. The Iranian-sponsored militias are viewed with deep suspicion by Iraq's Kurds, who see them as a policy implement of Tehran that threatens demographic change.

Thousands of revelers waving the Iraqi Turkmen and Iraqi national flags were celebrating the transfer of power in downtown Kirkuk by nightfall, but thousands more were fleeing the city with their belongings to the neighboring Kurdish region, fearful of national or militia rule.

FRICTION BETWEEN U.S. ALLIES?

The dispute over Kirkuk pits two close U.S. allies in the war against the Islamic State group against each other. The U.S. has armed, trained and provided vital air support to both sides in their shared struggle and called the frictions a distraction against the most important fight.

But for parts of Monday, Iraqi and Kurdish forces turned their weapons against each other. The Kurdistan Region Security Council said early Monday that the peshmerga destroyed at least five U.S.-supplied Humvees being used by Iraq's state-sanctioned militias.

It's the timing of the dispute that underscores how fragile Iraq is now. It was only three months ago that the peshmerga, federal forces, and the PMF were maneuvering alongside each other to recapture Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, from IS, and two weeks ago that they expelled them from Hawija, their last bastion in northern Iraq. With IS now defeated there, the danger for Iraq will now likely come from its own divisions.

WHAT'S NEXT?

It will take time for Iraq and its Kurdish region to restore amicable relations after the strains of the past three weeks. Baghdad wants the Kurds to disavow the overwhelmingly in-favor referendum result. This has been refused by Irbil, the Kurdish capital.

Talks between the two sides are now likely to focus on easing sanctions against the Kurdish region, including those on the banking sector and against international flights.

There is considerable distrust between Baghdad and Irbil dating back to Saddam Hussein's wars against the Kurdish region and forced Arabization of some of its cities.

But the two sides also rely on each other, especially in fragile economic times. The Kurdish region is responsible for up to a quarter of Iraq's oil production, while Baghdad controls the currency and several pipelines in and out of north Iraq. The Kurdish region is presently entitled to 17% of Iraq's federal budget, of which the Kurds are expected to try to negotiate a bigger share, in addition to greater autonomy.

Inside the Kurdish region, elections are slated to be held next month and the two major parties will be looking to leverage the crisis to win votes. It is no accident, analysts say, that President Masoud Barzani, whose term expired in 2015, slated the referendum two months before elections. He hopes to cast himself as a visionary for the Kurds, they say, even if he can't deliver on the dream of independence.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/battle-iraqi-city-kirkuk-matters-50513454

 

[Arkain2K]

 

[Arkain2K]

 

[Arkain2K]

 

[Arkain2K]

 

[Arkain2K]

 

[Arkain2K]

 

[Arkain2K]

 

[Arkain2K]

As Iraqi forces push into disputed area, U.S. "not taking sides"
October 16, 2017

KIRKUK, Iraq -- Two weeks after fighting together against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Iraqi forces pushed their Kurdish allies out of the disputed city of Kirkuk on Monday, seizing oil fields and other facilities amid soaring tensions over last month's Kurdish vote for independence.

The move by the Iraqi military and its allied militias so soon after neutralizing the ISIS in northern Iraq hinted at a country that could once again turn on itself after disposing of a common enemy.

President Trump expressed disappointment the two sides were fighting but stressed that the U.S. isn't seeking to openly take sides in the dispute.

"We don't like the fact that they're clashing. We're not taking sides," Mr. Trump told reporters at the White House Monday. "We've had for many years a very good relationship with the Kurds as you know and we've also been on the side of Iraq, even though we should have never there in the first place. We should never have been there. But we're not taking sides in that battle."

Civilians and federal troops pulled down Kurdish flags around the city. Kurdish Gov. Najmaddin Karim, who had stayed at his post despite being dismissed by Baghdad weeks ago, fled to Irbil, the capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish zone.

Revelers waving Iraq's national flag and the flag of its Turkmen minority flooded central Kirkuk in an evening celebration. But it was the Shiite sectarian chants heard above the din of the rally that underscored the coming political battles between Iraq and its Kurdish region.

Iraqi forces were supported -- as they always are now in major operations -- by the country's Popular Mobilization Forces, a predominantly Shiite militia coalition that the Kurds see as an instrument of Iranian policy.

In their bid to keep Kirkuk and its oil-rich countryside, Kurdish leaders whipped up fears that the central government in Baghdad is dominated by Tehran and would oppress Kurds if they recaptured the ethnically mixed city.

Their fears were further affirmed after Iran came out forcefully against the Kurdish region's nonbinding referendum for independence on Sept. 25 and then closed its official crossings to the region on Sunday.

Iraq's Kurds, too, remember the brutal campaigns waged by Saddam Hussein, himself an enemy of Tehran, against the minority, including a poison gas attack on the town of Halabja in 1988 that killed thousands.

As Arab and Turkmen revelers celebrated the change of power in Kirkuk, thousands of Kurdish residents, fearful of federal and militia rule, packed the roads north to Irbil.

But Baghdad was eyeing its Kurdish partners warily as well. Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi said he was reclaiming a city that was never within the legal boundaries of the Kurdish autonomous region.

When Iraq's armed forces crumbled in the face of an advance by ISIS in 2014, Kurdish forces moved into Kirkuk to secure the city and its surrounding oil wells. The city is 20 miles outside the Kurds' autonomous region in northeast Iraq.

Baghdad insisted the city and its province be returned, but matters came to a head when the Kurdish authorities expanded their referendum to include Kirkuk. To the Iraqi central government, that looked like a provocation that underscored what it sees as unchecked Kurdish expansionism. The city of more than 1 million is home to a mix of Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen, as well as Christians and Sunni and Shiite Muslims.

Kurdish officials accused the Iraqi army of carrying out a "major, multiprong attack," and reported heavy clashes on Kirkuk's outskirts, but a spokesman for Iraq's state-backed militias said they were met by little resistance.

By midday, federal forces had moved into several major oil fields north of the city, as well as its airport and an important military base, according to Iraqi commanders. Kurdish party headquarters inside Kirkuk had been abandoned.

The U.S., which has armed, trained and provided vital air support to both sides in their shared struggle against ISIS, described Monday's events as "coordinated movements, not attacks," while bemoaning the dispute as a distraction against a common enemy. It said the limited exchange of fire was a "misunderstanding."

After initial reports of clashes in and around the city, it appeared by afternoon as though the vastly outnumbered Kurdish forces, known as the peshmerga, were pulling out with hardly a fight.

Local police stayed in place in Kirkuk as al-Abadi urged civil servants to remain at their posts. "We have only acted to fulfill our constitutional duty and extend the federal authority and impose security and protect the national wealth in this city," he said.

Brig. Gen. Bahzad Ahmed, a spokesman for Kurdish forces, said federal forces seized an oil and gas company and other industrial areas south of Kirkuk in fighting with Kurdish forces that caused "lots of casualties," without providing a number.

He said Iraqi forces have "burnt lots of houses and killed many people" south of the disputed city. His claims could not be independently verified.

A spokesman for Iraq's state-sanctioned militias said they had "achieved all our goals" in retaking areas from Kurdish forces in and around the city. Ahmed al-Assadi said federal forces came under fire from "some rebels" after launching the operation early Monday and returned fire. He did not say whether they suffered any casualties.

He said federal forces were deployed in the area of the K-1 military base, the Kirkuk airport and a number of oil fields and installations. The Iraqi military said it seized two major oil fields outside the city.

Al-Assadi said the Popular Mobilization Forces have not entered central Kirkuk, but Associated Press reporters saw Turkmen PMF militiamen taking up posts in the western part of the city.

Tensions have risen since the Kurdish referendum on independence from Iraq. The central government, along with neighboring Turkey and Iran, as well as the United States, rejected the vote.

The central government and the autonomous Kurdish region have long been at odds over sharing oil revenue and the fate of disputed territories like Kirkuk that are controlled by Kurdish forces but outside the self-ruled region.

Al-Abadi has said the militias will remain outside the city.

Baghdad has been increasing pressure on the region since the referendum, pushing Kurdish leaders to disavow the vote and accept shared administration over Kirkuk.

Al-Abadi's Cabinet said Sunday that fighters from Turkey's Kurdish insurgency, the PKK, were beginning to appear in Kirkuk, and he declared that would be tantamount to an act of war.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kurds-iraq-kirkuk-isis-peshmerga-iraqi-troops/

 

[Darkballs]

And now the same Iraqi forces who fled before their sunni brothers in ISIS leaving the Kurds to be massacred and do most of the heavy fighting, are now pushing in to kill them with US supplied weapons.

At this point, you have to wonder why the Kurds haven't declared us their sworn enemy.

 

[HomerThompson]

And now the same Iraqi forces who fled before their sunni brothers in ISIS leaving the Kurds to be massacred and do most of the heavy fighting, are now pushing in to kill them with US supplied weapons.

At this point, you have to wonder why the Kurds haven't declared us their sworn enemy.

Because everyone else is trying to kill them. We're at least willing to ally with them when it's convenient for us.

 

[mon]

Kurds are a people who genocided the indigenous people of the land and continue to do so until today and refuse to acknowledge it, treating the indigenous Christians as sub humans just as their Arab and Turk masters did to them.

Seeing people suck their dick is somewhat hilarious given how they're even more radical than Levantine Arabs and Turks.

They have honour killings and they cut their women's vaginas up to say the least.

But strange that people are supporting this and they aren't even 8% of the population. If you stated in the war room African Americans should have their own autonomous country this would be flamed and rightly so yet AA's would have more right to do so than the Kurds in my opinion.

 

[Nooob]

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