Free Republic

Civil war may have devastated much of Syria over the past two-and-a-half years, but one part of the country – its northeastern Kurdish region – has been relatively unscathed. Last month, however, a flood of nearly 200,000 Syrian Kurdish refugees into the largely autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq raised new fears that Syria’s Kurds are becoming increasingly embroiled in the Middle East’s most violent conflict. The refugees were fleeing attacks by jihadist groups that attacked Kurdish communities along the Turkish border. Militant groups such as al-Qaida’s affiliate in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, are fighting to control border areas near Turkey...

Now wait a minute. We're constantly told that no Muslims in the U.S. -- none -- adhere to Al Qaeda's understanding of Islam, and only greasy Islamophobes think otherwise. So how did Amiir Farouk Ibrahim, no doubt known to all and sundry back home in Pennsylvania as a solid and respectable burgher of serious mien, come to misunderstand his peaceful religion so resoundingly? "American passport found at al Qaeda base in northern Syria," by Bill Roggio for the Long War Journal, July 23 (thanks to Jerk Chicken): A passport said to belong to an American citizen was found among a...

A Tel Aviv based law center has represented two families of American citizens in their successful $338 million lawsuit against the government of Syria. The decision, handed down Monday in the United States district court for Washington D.C., found that the government of Syria was responsible for providing material support and resources to the Kurdish Workers Party ("PKK"), a terrorist organization designated by the U.S. State Department. Chief District Court Judge Royce Lamberth ruled that Syria was vicariously liable for the PKK's 1991 kidnapping of a group of American biblical archeologists leading an excavation in Turkey. The Americans, who were...

BAGHDAD – The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), confirmed Monday that it had received an initial $547 million payment. "We can confirm receipt by the KRG of the first portion of the money which is 650 billion Iraqi dinars Baghdad will pay the KRG IQD1 trillion, some IQD650 billion out of which will be paid now, while the remaining IQD350 billion will be paid either by the end of this year or the beginning of 2013, depending on the central government's budgetary procedures. This agreement comes after KRG suspended crude oil exports of nearly 100,000 barrels a day in April, citing...

Washington and Ankara have agreed to create an "intelligence shield" to prevent militants of the Kurdistan Workers' Party from freely entering and operating on the Turkish territory from Syria as they discussed "after Assad" future. The format of the Turkish-American anti-terrorist cooperation anticipates joint collection and sharing of intelligence data on militants' activities on the Syrian territory and Turkish border districts, including possible rotation of chemical weapons on Syrian territory. According to the Turkish NTV channel the "intelligence shield" is to be directed by CIA operatives that have been previously working in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The shield's creation is the...

At least eight people were killed and dozens of others wounded Monday night in Turkey after a car exploded in the southeastern town of Gaziantep. The car was apparently was packed with a bomb and was set off by remote control, officials said. It was situated near the Gaziantep police station when it exploded, according to Turkish media. According to a report broadcast on NTV television, as many as 50 people were wounded in the blast. The bombing came as people were celebrating the second of the two-day holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Islamic holy...

In the safe haven of Iraqi Kurdistan, the Jews and Israel are remembered fondly,if increasingly vaguely. "THEY CALL That lack of restraint?" the former Iraqi army officer exclaimed, while watching the BBC’s coverage of the Al-Aqsa Intifada on satellite TV last winter. "If this demonstration were held in Baghdad, there’d be 10,000 bodies in the street," said the Arab from Baghdad who now teaches in Iraqi Kurdistan. Almost 4 million people live in the safe haven of northern Iraq. A de facto autonomous region, it has been administered by the Kurds since 1991 when Saddam Hussein withdrew his administration in ...

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday Turkey could act against a "terrorist" organisation in northern Syria if it sees it as a threat, in a warning to Kurdish militants believed to be active in the region. Erdogan's talk of possible intervention marked a new escalation in tensions between Turkey and its southern neighbour, which have been increasingly at odds since Syrian President Bashar al-Assad failed to heed Ankara's calls to quit... His comments were Ankara's first acknowledgement of concern about the growing influence of Syria's Democratic Union Party (PYD) - linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has...

The outdated policies implemented by states in the Middle East, including Turkey, are no longer applicable. Heavy clashes have intensified between the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and Turkish military forces. Wide-ranging operations have increased across the mountainous terrain of north Kurdistan... Last week, the PKK kidnapped Veysel Celik, who has served as the ruling Justice and Development Party's (AKP) district official in Diyarbakir's Kulp district, and abducted 6 village guards ("korucu" in Turkish), who are Kurdish militias armed by the Turkish state to fight against the PKK guerillas. Nureddin Sofi explained that these kinds of activities will continue... Moreover, details...

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad may have won a battle earlier this year (as the retreat of the Free Syrian Army from the ruined city of Homs testifies), but he is nowhere near winning the war. The uprising is quickly turning into a full-scale insurgency - a foreign-sponsored insurgency, to be more precise, which some analysts term a "neo-mujahideen strategy".

Turkish intelligence agencies are claiming that Israeli Heron unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) spied for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the Turkish daily Today’s Zaman reported. According to the report, the Turkish intelligence agencies prepared a report after two Israeli Herons were detected in Turkey’s Hatay and Adana provinces roughly two months ago. The report says the Herons were collecting intelligence on Turkish military units in order to aid PKK operations in those regions. The report asserts that the PKK’s training camps in northern Syria, near Turkey’s Hatay border “where Turkish military border posts are relatively weak” were established in those...

George Orwell’s greatest act of genius was the invention of Newspeak, the official language of Oceania, devised to meet the ideological needs of “Ingsoc,” or English Socialism. Explaining the nature of a mass trial in Turkey likewise requires the construction of a language all its own. Of late, journalists’ trials have received particular notice in the foreign press, but only because the arrest of journalists excites other journalists. In fact, early-morning raids, mass arrests, detentions without trial, and mass trials are a common feature of the Turkish landscape—for academics, students, suspected members of the so-called KCK (the urban wing of...

Some Middle Eastern governments often use religion as a tool to attack their opponents. In Turkey, the authorities have for long tried to portray the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) as non-Muslims in order to delegitimize their movement among Muslim Kurds and Turks. Charging the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) and the PKK with promoting Zoroastrianism is yet another campaign by Turkey against the Kurdish rebel group. The idea that Kurds are actually Zoroastrians is not something new. Kurdish nationalists such as the Bedirkhan brothers tried to revive Zoroastrianism and Yezidism as the original religion of the Kurds in the 1920s...

An explosion has blown up a section of a pipeline carrying oil from Iraq to southern Turkey and set it on fire. The blast occurred on Saturday near the town of Midyat in the southeastern province of Mardin, but the cause is still unknown, Turkey's Anatolia news agency reported. Firefighters have arrived on the scene, but the fire is still raging, according to the latest reports. The 970-kilometer (600-mile) twin conduit pipeline begins in Iraq's northern oil hub of Kirkuk and ends in the port of Ceyhan on Turkey's Mediterranean coast ...

SNIPPET: "A remote-controlled bomb that hit a bus carrying Turkish soldiers and civilians has killed five people and left at least 12 injured in Istanbul. The explosion took place when the vehicle was passing through the Halkali district on the outskirts of the city. The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), believed to be an offshoot of the PKK Kurdish rebel group, later claimed responsibility for the attack. The PKK has recently stepped up its attacks on Turkish military targets."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Supreme Court justices on Tuesday questioned whether a law that bars Americans from providing support to foreign terrorist groups violated constitutional rights of free speech and association. Some justices seemed concerned the law outlawed the provision to such groups even of advice about lawful advocacy, such as petitioning the United Nations or filing legal briefings in American courts. The hour-long arguments represented the first test to reach the Supreme Court after the September 11, 2001, attacks pitting First Amendment rights of free speech and association against government efforts to fight terrorism. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said verbal...

Bayram Bozyel, the General Chairman of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Hak-Par (Rights and Freedom Party) has disclosed a plan he claims will soon be implemented to dissolve the Kurdistan Workers Party (Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan – PKK) and end the longstanding conflict between Turkey’s military and the Iraqi-based Kurdish militants (Haber Turk, July 6; Sabah, July 11). Hak-Par seeks greater Kurdish autonomy within a Turkish federal system. According to Bozyel, who made the revelations following meetings with leading members of northern Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the four-part plan was drawn up by Turkey, Iraq and the United States and has the full...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/tg14.htm February 4, 2009 TG-14 Treasury Designates Free Life Party of Kurdistan a Terrorist Organization Washington, DC – The U.S. Department of the Treasury today designated the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK), a Kurdish group operating in the border region between Iraq and Iran, under Executive Order 13224 for being controlled by the terrorist group Kongra-Gel (KGK, aka the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK). "With today's action, we are exposing PJAK's terrorist ties to the KGK and supporting Turkey's efforts to protect its citizens from attack," said Stuart Levey, Treasury's Under Secretary...

Note: The following blog entry is a quote: http://www.thememriblog.org/turkey/blog_personal/en/11425.htm The PKK is putting more bombing and assassination plans into action Analysts say the PKK is putting more bombing and assassination plans into action in order to prevent its dissolution of and to strengthen its grassroots support for the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) ahead of the March local elections. Turkey's National Intelligence Organization discovered that the PKK sent a specially trained assassination team to Ankara to carry out the attack against the general, whose name was not disclosed. The team, which infiltrated Turkey from northern Iraq, reportedly possessed high-technology and...

Istanbul Police said 222 kg of heroin, 184 kg of hashish, 2 kg of cocaine and thousands of synthetic pills were confiscated in 141 operations in several parts of the metropolis.