Posted on 10/18/2017 11:52:36 AM PDT by Texas Fossil
ANF and Roj News reporters Ersin Caksu and Sores Benek wrote about what happened in Kirkuk yesterday.
During the invasion maneuvers of the Iraqi army and the Hashd al-Shabi on Kirkuk, the defense line formed by the guerrillas, the peshmergas who refused to withdraw and the people of Kirkuk who took up arms in the Feylaq Crossing was broken when KDP forces abandoned the general security forces buildings and withdrew from the area along with their heavy weaponry.
Following the attacks the Iraqi army and the Hashd al-Shaabi forces with them launched on Kirkuk, the defense line formed by the HPG, the YJA Star, the volunteers and some peshmergas who refused to withdraw in central Kirkuk neighborhood of Feylaq was broken when KDP withdrew.
After the attacks started, HPG issued a call in the morning for self defense. Hundreds of citizens took their weapons and rushed to the areas the defense line was to be formed. Dozens of peshmergas also joined the guerrilla and the people in the defense line.
As preparations for the defense line continued, by 10.30, KDP peshmergas abandoned their security building at the Feylaq crossing and the crossing itself. KDP forces shot into the air to announce the start of Hashd al-Shaabi’s attack before they abandoned the area taking their heavy weapons with them.
The people were angry with the KDP peshmergas abandoning their posts, while some citizens went on the overpass and shot into the air in protest to the KDP forces leaving the area.
The people’s morale dipped when the KDP forces left the area, while some put down their arms and said: “If they don’t resist and just up and leave with such heavy weapons and tanks, how can we resist with just Kalashnikovs?”
Meanwhile, many citizens trying to leave their homes and cross into the safe line were caught on camera saying “Kaka aş betal e, aş betal e, em firotin” (“Brother it’s ash betal, it’s ash betal, they sold us out”) in reference to the laying down of arms (“ash betal”) in 1975 after the Algeria treaty.
HPG, volunteers and the peshmergas resisted for some time by the Feylaq crossing with their individual weapons, but had to retreat further into the neighborhoods to form a new defense line when the area was hit by tanks.
PEOPLE OF KIRKUK LEFT THE CITY WHEN THERE WAS NO RESISTANCE
Citizens who didn’t want to leave their homes during the invasion attacks by the Iraqi army and Hashd al-Shaabi later had to leave due to the lack of a central decision to resist.
The people, left undefended after the attacks on Kirkuk by the Iraqi army and the Hashd al-Shaabi forces, had to leave the city.
When the attacks began, citizens in southern and western neighborhoods of the city first crossed into the city center and then into the northern and eastern neighborhoods of the city.
Citizens crossed into the northern and eastern neighborhoods when the Iraqi army and Hashd al-Shaabi were able to advance without large scale resistance and migrated to Chamchamal, Teqteq, Hewlêr and Sulaymaniyah on threat of a possible massacre.
Some of the citizens took their children out of the city and then returned with their weapons. The lack of a central decision to resist has made the people furious while citizens left defenseless had to get out of the city.
Most of the Kurds left the city while there was no migration into the Arab and Turkmen neighborhoods. Some Sunni Turkmens were seen leaving their homes on threat of a massacre.
Citizens forced to migrate were greeted by other citizens in Teqteq and Chamchamal. A large portion of the residents of Teqteq and Chamchamal stayed on the roads through the night to host the people who had to leave Kirkuk.
I have heard reports of rape and pillage of some towns at the hands of the Iraqi Army (PMF Iranian Militia's) And reports of 10 Peshmerga soldiers being beheaded.
This article is from perspective of Kurdish reporters in Kirkuk. (Current time in Kirkuk, Iraq is 9:51 PM)
Is Kirkuk going to be part of Kurdistan? May be the problem.
“Most of the Kurds left the city while there was no migration into the Arab and Turkmen neighborhoods. Some Sunni Turkmens were seen leaving their homes on threat of a massacre.”
This is straight up baloney. The Turkmens are allied with the Iraqi government in this conflict. Turkmens are Turks who live outside of Turkey. There is no massacre coming on anyone here.
The Iraqi government is simply taking back control over areas that the Kurds took from ISIS that were under government control before the war. The Kurdish regional government is handing them over to the Iraqi government willingly. Some Kurds in these areas don’t want that, but it’s going to happen.
Let’s chill with this laughable propaganda.
At this point, it looks like not.
Looks like to me they could have picked a better way to do it if that is the case.
At a critical moment the Kurds were unable to unify. If they were serious about an independent homeland, it was a strategic necessity to hold Kirkuk and the surrounding oil fields. United they had the power and military resources to do so. They have probably squandered much of what they achieved through their hard fighting and sacrifices over the past five years.
Correct.
I think in the past 5 minutes I figured this out.
Will not post it here. It all makes sense now.
Unfortunately, the enemies of true independence for the Kurds and political divisions among the Kurds work together some times to the Kurds disadvantage. I think deciding how to navigate the issue of Kirkuk is a case where there simply is not unity among all Kurds, right now. Under different circumstances in the past, and yet in the future, things could have been and yet could be different.
Having an important globally strong ally has helped the Kurds on occasion, and lacking one has in all the modern era hurt the cause of the Kurds.
The Sunni Arabs could rely on strong regional allies, as could the Shia whether of the sort from Iran or among the Shia Arabs of Mesopotamia somewhat, as could the Turkomen, but usually for the Kurds they have lost out or had only themselves to depend on.
My own view is the British Empire, always thinking only of itself and its interest, set a bad course when the post WWI & II agreements they engineered with the French honored self-determination to Arabs of many sorts, and the Turks, and Persians, but never the Kurds.
I think a strong an independent Kurdish nation would have resulted in a very different history in the Middle East in our time and one where the west had a true partner - unlike most all our so-called friends in the region.
For reference:
https://t.co/ohA8J8IRZ6
Wictor’s take on it:
https://twitter.com/ThomasWictor/status/920010946793431041
That withdrawal by the Kurds saving their armor is understandable. This report shows how complicated the situation is. Keep up the good work .
Yes. We should have rewarded Turkey’s perfidy in it’s last minute denial of passage to US troops by dividing Iraq along ethnic lines and putting a free and independent Kurdistan right on Turkey’s border.
I was sent PMs telling me I was an armchair QB and didn’t know what I was talking about.
The Kurds ran, just like I said. There were no Shia militia. It was the Iraqi army and multi national special forces from the GCC. They walked right in.
The paradigm has shifted. The art of warfare has changed dramatically. Iran and Russia have been defeated in Syria. Assad has no army. ISIS has been iradicated in Iraq.
The mullahs days are numbered.
Kirkuk has never been of Kurdish majority, the Kurds are somewhere about 40% of the population.
Prior to ISIS, Kirkuk was under Iragi government control. ISIS ran them off, the Kurds then ran off ISIS and occupied Kirkuk.
Now the Iraqi Army, emboldened from the fight in Mosul, where they did the heavy lifting, is reoccupying Kirkuk. That’s it.
The Iraqi central government has been adamant all along the the Kurds not be given artillery. That is the Kurd’s central weakness.
There are many Turkmens in Kirkuk. So, Turkey and Iran are ethnically motivated to keep Kirkuk from being controlled by the Kurds.
The Iranian controlled Iraqi government wants Kirkuk oil, all of it.
I'm sensing sarcasm because that's a path to more war.
Maybe Wictor should listen to you. LOL. That’s some solid analysis right there.
The Iranian controlled Iraqi government wants Kirkuk oil, all of it.
************
I keep hearing this repeated, but just how do the Iranians control Iraq? The neocons are seeing Iranians under every Iraqi bush. Iraq has its own oil, and a military that is heavily armed and trained by the USA. The two adjacent nations trade with each other and share a common religious heritage, just like the USA and Canada, but this hardly makes Iraq an Iranian puppet. Anyway, why should we dismember a country that has expelled ISIS and is trying to live at peace with its neighbors?
Is it?
A people having their own homeland isn’t worth fighting for?
Are you a Tory?
Good thing we didn’t do it, because the area is certainly a model of peaceful coexistence without a Kurdistan stirring things up, isn’t it?
I read this and I still don’t know what happened in Kirkuk.
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