Islamic State kills 24 Kurds in surprise attack in North Iraq
Source: Reuters
(Reuters) - Islamic State militants have killed at least 24 members of the Kurdish security forces in a surprise attack in northern Iraq, Kurdish officials said, in one of the deadliest single battles for the Kurds since last summer.
Three Kurdish officers reported continued clashes with Islamic State on Sunday, one day after the deaths, near Gwer, a town some 40km (25 miles) southwest of the autonomous Kurdish region's capital Arbil.
Kurdish-controlled Gwer is likely to be a launch-pad for any future attempt by Iraqi and Kurdish forces to retake Mosul, the biggest city in northern Iraq which Islamic State seized last June.
Islamic State militants crossed the river Zab in small boats on Friday night and entered Gwer, but were driven back by Kurdish peshmerga forces, the officers said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/11/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-kurds-idUSKBN0KK0CX20150111
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/11/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-kurds-idUSKBN0KK0CX20150111
4dsc
(5,787 posts)so I hope the world will help them.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)Time and time again the Kurds have been let down by the world - including the United States.
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)like this one without destroying its logistics. Where do the resources to keep these people in the field come from and why is it never discussed? That's the head of the snake. Cut if off and the body dies. Most alarming to me is how, whoever these people are, they were able to raise and equip an army under the noses of the same intelligence services that have somehow determined that spying on American citizens is an essential function of national security.
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)Where ever the cash or guns is coming from it flies into Turkey and is smuggled into the Syria border. This is actually how the CIA delivered arms to the Sunni rebels
C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition
WASHINGTON A small number of C.I.A. officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey, helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive arms to fight the Syrian government, according to American officials and Arab intelligence officers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/world/middleeast/cia-said-to-aid-in-steering-arms-to-syrian-rebels.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Where they get their funding isn't a big secret but they also export oil on the black market.
Royal Donors in the Gulf
Grossing as much as $40 million or more over the past two years, ISIS has accepted funding from government or private sources in the oil-rich nations of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwaitand a large network of private donors, including Persian Gulf royalty, businessmen and wealthy families.
Until recently, all three countries had openly given hefty sums to rebels fighting Bashar Assads Syrian regime, among them ISIS. Only after widespread criticism from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the international community did Saudi Arabia pass legislation in 2013 criminalizing financial support of terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra and ISIS.
Lori Plotkin Boghardt, a fellow in Gulf politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in Washington, D.C., tells Newsweek that private donors across the Persian Gulf are continuing to funnel money to ISIS. Qatar and Kuwait continue to stick out as two trouble spots when it comes to counterterrorist financing enforcement, she said. Continued financial sanctions imposed on Kuwait and Qatar terrorist financiers by the U.S. Treasury suggest the U.S. government continues to be concerned about spotty, to say the least, Kuwaiti and Qatari enforcement of their counterterrorist financing laws.
A couple of factors are frustrating attempts to dam these rivers of cash. First, the relatively open banking systems of Qatar and Kuwait are being skillfully exploited by ISIS, since, unlike Saudi banks, they do not automatically raise red flags when money is siphoned to Islamist causes.
Second, Qatar and Kuwait are loath to limit the activities of highly influential ISIS donors due to the political fallout such intervention may cause. In Kuwait, a family of parliamentariansincluding Kuwaiti member of parliament Mohammed Hayef al-Mutairihas raised funds for jihadist groups with direct ties to ISIS. Cracking down on some ISIS financiers is politically complicated for these countries leaderships, Boghardt says.
http://www.newsweek.com/2014/11/14/how-does-isis-fund-its-reign-terror-282607.html
I think the only way they can be defeated is politically, not saying the army can't be crippled but all sides need to come up with a political solution to deal with how with either a land or government situation in Iraq, and what to do here in Syria who the rebels & ISIS do if they defeat the government.
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)is basically a Sunni racket controlled from the Persian Gulf and that nobody plans to do much of anything about it.
nradisic
(1,362 posts)That's why the Peshmerga took it on the chin, yet again. Bravest people I have ever encountered.