Free Republic

The declaration of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, ISIS or Daesh by its Arabic acronym) as a “project terror organization” by the National Security Council (MGK), the nation’s top military and security institution, on March 28 is nothing but a reflection of a long-held view by Turkey’s Islamist rulers that has often downplayed the threat of religious extremism and radicalism in the 80-million-strong predominantly Sunni nation in a dangerous and unstable neighborhood. The MGK statement, which is a recommendation, or rather an order in practice to all government agencies, reveals the troubling mindset among Turkey’s rulers....

France has offered to mediate in the conflict in northern Syria, where Turkey launched a military offensive against Kurdish fighters in January. Ankara is battling to drive out the Kurdish YPG militia, which it sees as an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). President Emmanuel Macron met members of the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces, including the YPG. Mr Macron expressed hopes for dialogue between Turkey and the militia. His office said he had "paid tribute to the sacrifices and the determining role" of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the fight against the Islamic State (IS) group. France...

It is a terrible thing to be a people without a state or province to call its own. Just ask the Kurds, who now find themselves under the hell of Turkey's ruthless ruler, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who may as well be one of the Turkish sultans of the past. For he has unleashed a campaign of genocidal fury against people of his ever-expanding realm. And no one can say the world hasn't been given fair warning of his genocidal intentions. At latest report, his troops and some Syrian puppets under his control were driving farther and farther east, planning to...

The announcement Thursday night that former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton would replace Gen. H.R. McMaster as President Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor confirms the arrival of a new, distinctive voice in the Trump administration. On no issue will Bolton’s firm stance present a bigger departure from establishment dogma than his support for an independent Kurdistan. Bolton has vocally, consistently supported the establishment of an independent Kurdish state, arguing that the Kurds have proven their ability to govern themselves and earned the support of the United States through their reliable cooperation with Washington against a number of jihadist threats, most prominently...

Rebels threaten historic diversity in province where Jews once visited Kurdish, Yazidi neighbors. Kurds often say they have “no friends but the mountains.” However, after the Turkish and Syrian rebel offensive took over most of the Kurdish area of Afrin in northern Syria in the last two months, they’ve been saying even the mountains cannot protect them against Turkish warplanes. Kamal Sido, the Middle East department director for the Society for Threatened Peoples, is in Israel this week seeking to raise awareness of suffering in Afrin. He describes in detail the suffering which Kurds, displaced by the conflict, now face....

Yazidis, a historically persecuted non-Muslim people in the Middle East, are yet again fleeing for their lives — this time from Turkey-backed jihadists invading Afrin in northern Syria. Murad Ismael, executive director of Yazda, a relief organization for Yazidi victims of genocide, has alerted the world to the deadly threat posed by Turkish airstrikes many times on his social media accounts and on March 12 wrote on Twitter: "We are evaluating what to do when the [whole] city falls, including an option to ask our people to leave the region altogether. We cannot have our people in Afrin under Al...

The claim: Soon after the Turkish military launched an offensive into the Afrin region of northern Syria, the Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin wrote: "Over the last year alone, more than 700 attacks have been launched from the Afrin area under PYD/YPG [the Kurdish Democratic Union Party and its armed wing, the People's Protection Units] control against Turkish cities." Reality Check verdict: The number of incidents publicly reported in that area and period, checked against multiple sources, appears to be far lower than 700 - Reality Check could find only 26. The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) told Reality...

“My son was killed on 5th of May 2017 in a clash with the Turkish army. I learned of his death from the news. On a social media site called “kanlıkule”, the photos of my son’s disintegrated body were shared. In the photos, a special operation’s soldier stood with his foot on top of my son’s body. My wife and I went to Hakkari to meet with the army commander to request my son’s body 20 days later. The commander said that they threw his body into the river. I said ‘commander, I want my son’s body. If you can’t...

British woman Anna Campbell is believed to have died while fighting against Isis in Syria. It is claimed that the 26-year-old from Lewes, East Sussex, was part of the all female Kurdish Women’s Protection Unit in Afrin, a besieged city. According to the Guardian the convoy she was travelling in was hit by a Turkish missile on Friday. She is said to have dyed her hair black so that she looks less like a westerner and begged her commanders to send her to the front line. Her father Dirk Campbell told the paper: ‘Anna was very idealistic, very serious,...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the United States of failing to deliver on promises to rein in Kurdish militants in Syria, breaking a brief rhetorical truce that followed a visit by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson last month to ease strained ties between the NATO allies.Erdogan’s anger may have been reignited by reports this week that the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) is sending 1,700 fighters to the province of Afrin to fight the Turkish military, which invaded the border region in January to thwart Kurdish territorial gains along its border. “The terrorist corridor that is being set...

BEIRUT — U.S.-allied forces in eastern Syria said Tuesday that they are withdrawing from the front lines of the war against the Islamic State in order to battle the United States’ NATO ally Turkey elsewhere in the country, jeopardizing the fight against the militants. Citing disappointment with the United States, the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said they were pulling fighters off the front lines in the province of Deir al-Zour, where Islamic State fighters have been putting up a fierce fight in a pocket of territory on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River. The holdouts there are thought...

The PKK threatens to move the battle into Turkey, saying that the battle of Afrin is the beginning real revolution Kurdistan in Turkey and calls Kurdish youth to join the resistance against the Turkish occupation army in every a place.

On the 15th and 16th of March, The Permanent People's Tribunal will hold a hearing on violations made by the Turkish state against the Kurdish population in Paris. A panel of judges will hear investigations into alleged breaches of international humanitarian law by the Turkish Armed Forces within Turkey. The judges will also assess the legality of Turkish intelligence operations against dissidents in Europe. The indictment, which has been brought forward by the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL), the European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and World Human Rights, Maf-Dad, and the Kurdish Institute Brussels seeks to investigate two...

The Iraqi military has reportedly warned of an Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) resurgence in northern Iraq, noting that the group has already attacked the Kurdish-majority Kirkuk region, home to lucrative oil fields. In an interview with Bas News, Ahmed Askari, a member of the Kurdish-held Kirkuk Provincial Council, dismissed as false the Iraqi military’s allegation of an ISIS re-emergence in northern Iraq, a region primarily controlled by the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). However, Kurdistan 24 reports: Islamic State (IS) extremists on Saturday launched an attack on an oil field in Kirkuk Province, killing at least two police officers. A security...

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Security concerns have caused Iranian officials to delay the implementation of a deal to truck crude oil from Kirkuk to Iran, the head of the Iran-Iraq Chamber of Commerce announced on Monday. The delay comes a day after a suicide bomber targeted a Hashd al-Shaabi office in Kirkuk and after ISIS killed two police officers at an oilfield in the province on Saturday. “A large number of ISIS terrorists attacked a post of the oil police force near well 43 in the Khabbaz oilfield, killing two and wounding a third,” a security source told AFP. Iraq...

Starts with Syria's ongoing massacre of its own people outside Damascus. Followed by an excellent clarification of events between the various forces in the Middle East right now. Some comments on the Palestinians and Egypt's role in all of this. Turkey's conflict with everyone, including Greece. As an old friend of mine once said, "At the dawn of recorded history, the Middle East was at war."

U.S. has provided Kurdistans’ forces with arms, air support and military advisers… regards the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its powerful military wing YPG/YPJ, as key ally against Islamic State IS and the most effective fighting force against IS in Syria. // snipp // Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said Russia had stepped in to block Syrian forces in Afrin, where Ankara is seeking to destroy the Kurdish YPG… Erdogan later said in a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin that Damascus would face consequences if it struck a deal with the YPG. // snipp // On Sunday, a Kurdish...

Turkish jets bombard Iranian militia entering Afrin

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian Kurdish forces and the Damascus government have reached an agreement for the Syrian army to enter the Afrin region to help repel a Turkish offensive, a senior Kurdish official said on Sunday. Badran Jia Kurd, an adviser to the Kurdish-led administration in northern Syria, told Reuters army troops would deploy along some border positions and could enter the region within the next two days. The deal underscores the increasingly tangled battlefield in northern Syria, driven by a web of rivalries and alliances among Kurdish forces, the Syrian government, rebel factions, Turkey, the United States and Russia.

The Kurdish YPG/Asayesh forces have begun to intensify their ongoing intimidations and threats towards Christians in Northeast Syria. They are now increasingly kidnapping and conscripting teenagers with the intention to send them to the frontline in places like Afrin. Local Christian sources, fearing for their lives and speaking on condition of anonymity to the World Council of Arameans (Syriacs) (“WCA”), report that they are facing more and more harassments from the Kurdish YPG and Asayesh (security forces). On Friday, 19 January, the first grave human rights violations of the new year included the abduction of seven Christians; four Armenians and...