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80 members of Iraq's Yazidi minority have been massacred by Islamic
State militants in a village in Iraq's north, Kurdish officials said.
“They
arrived in vehicles and they started their killing this
afternoon,” senior
Kurdish official Hoshiyar Zebari told Reuters. “We
believe it's because of their creed: convert or be killed.”
In
addition to the murders, local women were kidnapped from the village,
another Kurdish official source told Reuters. A local Yazidi lawmaker
confirmed the information.
According
to BasNews, a Kurdish website, it was the Yazidi minority village of
Kojo some 20 km south of Sinjar that came under attack by the Islamic
State (former ISIS) radicals.
BasNews
reports that around 80 men – the village’s whole male population
– was slaughtered, while all the women were kidnapped.
The
killings in the village lasted for about an hour, according to
eyewitness reports, based on the testimony of Yazidi MP Mahama Khalil
who spoke to survivors. Apparently, the massacre followed a five day
ultimatum to convert to Islam or die.
“[An
IS fighter] told me that the Islamic State had spent five days trying
to persuade villagers to convert to Islam and that a long lecture was
delivered about the subject today,” Reuters
quotes a man from a neighbouring village as saying. “He
then said the men were gathered and shot dead. The women and girls
were probably taken to Tal Afar because that is where the foreign
fighters are.”
The
ISIS fighters – known for torture, public punishments and
executions of those opposing them – have gained significant ground
in both Syria and Iraq after its initial assault on the city of Mosul
in mid-June. The group has since declared the creation of an Islamic
State, or caliphate, straddling the Iraq-Syria border.
Its
presence continues to hang over the Iraqi capital Baghdad, although
it seems to have halted after capturing key Sunni areas. Islamic
State has also been gaining ground in the autonomous region of
Kurdistan.
Last
week it was reported that extremists from the Islamic State killed at
least 500 people, including women and children, Iraqi officials said.
Some of the victims were buried alive.
The
threat posed by the militant offensive sent an estimated 130,000 of
Iraqis, many of them Yazidis, fleeing for their lives. They were
seeking refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan, where Kurd militias have been
battling with the Islamic State for weeks.
Around
40,000 Yazidis according to UN estimates have been stranded in
several locations on Mount Sinjar in north of Iraq, where food and
water are scarce.
Meanwhile
on Friday, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution freezing the
assets and imposing an arms embargo and travel ban on six of ISIS
jihadists.
The
resolution stated that the UNSC “deplores and condemns in
the strongest terms the terrorist acts of ISIL (Islamic State) and
its violent extremist ideology, and its continued gross,
systematic and widespread abuses of human rights and violations
of international humanitarian law,” adding that those who
finance, recruit or supply weapons to the insurgents might be
sanctioned as well.
The
list includes the group’s spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnan and Abdul
Mohsen Abdallah Ibrahim al-Charekh of Saudi Arabia from the Nusra
Front in Syria.
Update
on Security Council resolution approving sanctions against militants
in Iraq, Syria is here: http://ow.ly/AnlNo
ISIS a pretext for US-sponsored regime-change in Iraq
The
ousting of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is part of a broader
US plan for Iraq and the Middle East as a whole.
Against
the backdrop of the war against the Islamic State (IS, formerly
ISIS/ISIL), Washington has managed to kill two birds with one stone,
as the saying goes. Not only has the US removed a political leader
who had proven to be problematic due to his opposition to US military
presence in Iraq, as well as his staunch support for Syria and
President Assad, they have also created the conditions for the
dismemberment of the Iraqi state.
The
US and its allies are supporting de facto ‘independence’ for the
Kurdish region in the north of the country, using the IS as a
convenient pretext for openly arming and supporting Kurdish forces.
Naturally, one should not look for altruism in Washington’s
motives. Rather, this strategy is to benefit western oil companies
with dollar signs in their eyes, licking their lips in anticipation
of being able to deal directly with Kurdish President Barzani.
Additionally,
Maliki’s ouster deprives Syrian President Assad of a key ally,
thereby emboldening the IS and the other militants waging war against
Syria. It provides further evidence, as if more were needed, that the
political future is bleak for any Iraqi leader who dares to break
from the script written for him by Washington. Perhaps most
importantly, it allows the US and its allies to be the leading force
politically in the war against the IS, an organization created by US
policy and covert operations in the region.
In
the sales and marketing industry, there is a term known as ‘solution
selling’ whereby the salesperson either creates or exaggerates a
problem, then presents his or her product as the invaluable solution.
Indeed, this sort of sales strategy is precisely the approach
Washington has taken in the region, and specifically in Iraq.
The IS disease
The
IS has only very recently become an internationally recognized
epidemic of militant Islamist extremism that must be eradicated at
all costs. That international recognition came only when the
organization began taking control of territory in Iraq, threatening
Western oil and gas interests. While the IS was waging its brutal and
vicious war against the Syrian people and government however, the IS
was merely an afterthought, simply a group of extremists fighting the
‘brutal dictator’ Assad.
It
seems then that the danger of ISIS and the necessity to eradicate it
is directly correlative to US interests. Put another way, the IS is a
useful tool in Syria and southern Lebanon where it creates chaos to
the detriment of Assad and Hezbollah respectively, while in Iraq, the
IS is dangerous where it threatens the US client regime in Kurdistan
and Western oil interests. But of course, the detail consistently
left out of most analysis of the IS problem is the simple fact that
it is a creation of US intelligence and its covert war on Syria
.
As
early as 2011, the US CIA was involved in an elaborate and widespread
program to covertly arm militant extremists in Syria in order to
overthrow the government of President Assad. As the New York Times
and other media outlets reported in 2012, the CIA was working with
the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups along the Turkish-Syrian
border to funnel weapons, communications equipment, and other
military materiel to terrorist groups at war with Damascus. Despite
vehement claims by Washington that only ‘moderate rebels’ were
receiving such support, it is an open secret that much of those
supplies ended up in the hands of then-ISIS, which already by 2012
was beginning to establish itself as a dominant fighting force in the
Syrian war.
Perhaps
it should then begin to make sense why, when ISIS launched its
allegedly ‘surprise’ attack on the critical Iraqi city of Mosul
in June, they were so well armed and equipped with everything from
matching pickup trucks to anti-tank weapons, RPGs, and a host of
other US-made equipment. Naturally, in the days and weeks following
the attack, ISIS armed itself even further with confiscated Iraqi
military equipment, also provided by the US. So it would be fair to
say that, consciously or unconsciously, the United States helped to
create and unleash the IS we know today.
No
longer simply another militant organization among many, the IS has
grown, thanks to US sponsorship, into the premier terrorist fighting
force in the region, capable of engaging national militaries (Iraq,
Syria) and other well-organized armed groups such as Hezbollah. In
effect, the IS has become the enforcer of US foreign policy, a proxy
force that furthers the US agenda without any significant US military
presence needed. And yet, the IS is presented in the mainstream media
as the greatest threat in the Middle East. Why so? Why were they no
threat at all in Syria, but have become the great menace in Iraq?
Iraq, Maliki & Western interests
The
US waged an aggressive war and occupation of Iraq for nearly a decade
for the purposes of establishing a puppet government that would be
amenable to Western economic and geopolitical interests. In many
ways, that project failed as PM Maliki emerged as a strong,
nationalistic leader who was unwilling to accede to the demands of
the occupiers.
Washington
wanted to permanently base US troops in the country, and Maliki
rejected this proposal, demanding the permanent withdrawal of all US
forces by the end of 2011. Maliki purged Iraq of the US-sponsored
terrorist organization the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) which had waged a
decades-long campaign of terrorism against Iran by closing down Camp
Ashraf, the base from which the organization operated. Maliki also
sacked two key figures in Iraq’s banking establishment, both of
whom were close associates of neocon darling, and failed Iraqi
presidential candidate, Ahmed Chalabi, thereby earning him the ire of
Washington, which sought to maintain its grip on the purse-strings of
Iraqi wealth.
But
of course, these were by no means Maliki’s only ‘crimes’ in the
eyes of the US. He also challenged Western oil companies looking to
make massive profits off of Iraq’s vast energy deposits. Perhaps
the best-known instance occurred in 2012 when ExxonMobil signed an
oil exploration deal with the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region in
northern Iraq. Maliki rejected the validity of the deal, noting that
any oil contracts must be negotiated with the central government in
Baghdad, rather than Barzani’s US-aligned government in Arbil.
Maliki’s spokesman noted at the time that:
“Maliki
views these deals as representing a very dangerous initiative that
may lead to the outbreak of wars… [and] breaking up the unity of
Iraq…Maliki is prepared to go to the highest levels for the sake of
preserving the national wealth and the necessary transparency in
investing the wealth of the Iraqis, especially oil… [He] sent a
message to American President Barak [sic] Obama last week urging him
to intervene to prevent ExxonMobil from going in this direction.”
It
is no secret that Maliki’s strong-willed resistance to this deal,
in addition to his refusal to pay ExxonMobil upwards of $50 million
to improve production at one major southern oilfield led directly to
the oil company pulling out of the lucrative West Qurna-1 project.
Essentially then, Maliki took on the very powerful oil corporations
(BP is no friend of Maliki either), seeking to get a better deal for
Iraq.
It would be safe to assume that the endemic corruption in Iraq
would have made it easier for Maliki and his associates to enrich
themselves by skimming off the top and/or receiving payouts from
other oil interests. However, this is secondary to the primary
‘crime’ of challenging the hegemony of oil companies in Iraq.
And
it is here that we see quite clearly why the US has been so keen on
protecting their Kurdish puppet government, which really should be
understood as a ruling clique centered on President Barzani and
ex-President of Iraq Talabani, their families, and cronies. Since as
early as 2011, Western oil companies sought to bypass Maliki and the
legal government in Baghdad by making independent deals with the
Kurds. Not only did they not want to pay the taxes that would be used
to fund the recovery of Iraq from more than a decade of war, they
attempted to play the Iraqi and Kurdish authorities off one another
in a cynical ploy to more effectively and efficiently exploit the
corruption and competition that exists in both.
Of
course, it should be noted that the US, Israel, and other Western
powers have long maintained very close ties with Barzani and the
Kurds. A valid argument could be made that Kurdistan represents a
forward base for US military power projection in Iraq and,
particularly against Iran. Additionally, Israel has long maintained
close ties with Kurdish authorities, both in terms of political
support as well as covert intelligence and espionage-related
activities. As Israeli scholar Ofra Bengio recently wrote in the
pro-US, pro-Israeli publication the Middle East Quarterly:
"From
the 1990s on, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)
maintained relations with Kurdish officials since ‘pro-Israel
Jewish activists viewed support for the Kurds, a small nation
struggling for self-determination in a hostile Arab neighborhood, as
helping Israel reach out to a natural ally.’ According to Morris
Amitay, AIPAC's executive director from 1974 to 1980, ‘Our Israeli
friends always appreciated our friendship with the Kurds.’ Amitay's
son, Mike Amitay, also served as executive director of the Washington
Kurdish Institute (WKI) from 1996 to 2005.”
Naturally,
the Israeli connection is not strictly a benevolent one. Rather,
Israeli intelligence and special forces have been deeply intertwined
with their Kurdish counterparts as far back as 2003 and the
commencement of the second US war in Iraq (though likely decades
before that). As Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh
noted in 2004:
"The
Israelis have had long standing ties to the Talibani and Barzani
clans [in] Kurdistan and there are many Kurdish Jews that emigrated
to Israel and there are still a lot of connection. But at some time
before the end of the year, and I’m not clear exactly when,
certainly I would say a good six, eight months ago, Israel began to
work with some trained Kurdish commandoes, ostensibly the idea was
the Israelis — some of the Israeli elite commander units,
counter-terror or terror units, depending on your point of view,
began training — getting the Kurds up to speed."
So,
as should be self-evident, Washington’s decision to use military
force against ISIS is a cynical ploy to protect intelligence assets,
economic interests, and create a nominally independent Kurdish state
which will become integrated into the US-Israeli sphere of influence
in the region. In order to achieve these strategic objectives, first
and foremost, Maliki had to be gotten rid of.
And
so, regime change has once again come to Iraq, this time through the
backdoor. By arming ISIS in Syria, the US unleashed a monster in
Iraq, which it now uses as the pretext for fulfilling the
long-standing goal of de facto partition of Iraq. With Kurdish
independence robbing Iraq of vital oil resources, it is unlikely that
any ruling coalition consisting of Sunnis and Shia will effectively
govern the country, regardless of the individuals at its helm. And
this is precisely the point.
Sadly, in the interests of the West,
Iraq will now endure yet another civil war and period of misery and
despair. There will be no economic development, no political
progress, no peace. Exactly what Washington wanted.
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