Posted on 12/28/2014 12:26:25 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Extremist fighters from the group known as the Islamic State have left the Sinjar area the same way they came in during August this year: without any real combat or pitched battles. “I feel as if I’m watching the same thing I saw five months ago,” says Maizar al-Shammari, standing in front of his house, which is on the road into Sinjar, watching Iraqi Kurdish troops move forward. “At that time the Peshmerga [Iraqi Kurdish forces] withdrew without a fight. Today the Islamic State group is doing the same thing. It’s as if they just decided to swap roles,” he says.
Ever since the Iraqi Kurdish military began to fight with the self-proclaimed Islamic State, widely known as ISIS or ISIL, Sinjar has been an important piece of terrain for all comers in the conflict.
For ISIS it involves a major supply route. For the Iraqi Kurds the Sinjar region holds a lot of what is described as disputed territory—that is, land that is supposedly part of Iraq proper but which the Iraqi Kurds believe should belong to their semi-autonomous zone. They also believe that the Yazidi, an ethno-religious group, that live in Sinjar and have been particularly targeted by ISIS, are Kurds directly related to them.
Meanwhile the international coalition that is fighting against ISIS, mostly by airstrikes, sees the Sinjar area as having strategic importance; if blocked, the potential is there to separate ISIS in Iraq from ISIS in Syria.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
The Kurds have gained de facto independence.
Good for the Kurds, but this reads like another “yay, they can fight the terrorists for us and we can just sit back now” screed.
Very simple. For ISIS to take and hold land against any sort of opposition, they have to concentrate to overwhelm that opposition.
Unfortunately for them, when they concentrate they make a target rich environment for airstrikes.
Well, yeah. They believe that because it's true.
Kurds are an ethnic/linguistic group. The majority are Sunni Muslims. But quite a few Kurds are Shia or Sufi. And there are a wild variety of oddball religions among some of the Kurds. One of which is the Yezidi.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdish_culture#Religion
There is no “sitting back” when it comes to the Kurds. They are in a fierce struggle not only to throw out the ISIS army that has invaded their homeland, they are also determined to carve a nation of Kurdistan out of Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Iran, all of which may have different ideas of what constitutes a “territory”. The Kurds may be fighting on many fronts at once, and without a strong external assist provided by some benefactor, could end up crushed once again into brutal subjugation under divided national interests.
Kurdistan is at least as important as the Ukraine.
Correct, the Kurds do not sit back, and that is not a cue for us to sit back. On the same token, it is not a cue to continue to fight in the way liberals want to fight.
Hopefully it’s begun to turn the tide.
No!
Isis will merely move to areas where there is not as stiff resistance. They have been at war with the West and others like it for 1400 years they are not going to quit while they still have fighters on the ground to carry on the fight to the infidels.
FREEGARDS
LEX
The Kurds fight their own battles and are impressive at proving they could handle autonomy. The Ukranians, not so much.
Turning point was Russian entry into the war. ISIS can’t afford to defend their territory in Iraq anymore
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