Domestic quarrels and fears of a fractured nation are formidable hurdles on the path to KRG self-rule.
What does Massoud Barzani want?
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) announced that it would hold an independence referendum on September 25.
Over most of two decades, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani’s life has been a roadmap of Islamist militancy in Iraq and Syria. He joined the fight against U.S. forces in Iraq and was jailed by the Americans. He became a commander within the group known as the Islamic State of Iraq. He founded an Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria and then broke with Al Qaeda and ISI, striking out with his own group to oppose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The Islamic State terror group has increased its attacks on Iraqi and Kurdish security forces, killing nearly two dozen people in the last month, according to Iraqi officials.
Local government sources and public statements show that a wave of IS bombings and hit-and-run attacks, affecting largely the territories disputed between the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Region, have killed at least 21 people and wounded dozens more.
The US military has secretly transferred Daesh families from the dangerous al-Hawl detention camp in Syria, which is run by allied Kurdish militants, to a facility in Iraq’s northern province of Nineveh, a report says.
A high-ranking Iraq security source, requesting anonymity, told Iraqi Arabic-language al-Maalomah news agency on Friday that American forces relocated scores of children and women to Jeddah camp some 65 kilometers (40 miles) south of Mosul.
The transfers took place under the supervision of authorities from the so-called Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, also known as Rojava.
Although the streets of Kurdish cities in Turkey were largely empty politicians took to social media to defend the Erbil government.
As pressure on the Kurdistan Region by the US, UK, France grew, with threats from Iran and Turkey and disapproval from the UN Security Council to postpone or cancel the Monday referendum on secession from Iraq, Kurdish factions across the region rallied to back the vote.
As the post-independence referendum fallout between Erbil and Baghdad reaches a dangerous juncture, Baghdad strives to divide the Kurds through military threats and conditions.
As the post-independence referendum fallout between Erbil and Baghdad reaches a dangerous juncture, Baghdad strives to divide the Kurds through military threats and conditions.
Monitoring groups and Kurdish media in Syria on Thursday said Turkish-backed Syrian opposition have transported thousands of families from Ghouta to the Kurdish enclave of Afrin over the last month.
Monitoring groups and Kurdish media in Syria on Thursday said Turkish-backed Syrian opposition have transported thousands of families from Ghouta to the Kurdish enclave of Afrin over the last month.
Kurdistan 24 spoke recently with Najmaldin Karim, who served as Governor of Kirkuk Province until Baghdad’s assault last October in an attack engineered by Qasim Soleimani, head of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Spain is part of the international coalition to defeat ISIS, through which it had provided training to Peshmerga forces.
Spain is preparing to open a consulate general in the Kurdistan Region’s capital Erbil, the country’s newly inaugurated ambassador, Pedro Martinez-Avial, told Prime Minister Masrour Barzani on Thursday.
Abstract
Research has shown the potential of nonviolent civil resistance in challenging autocratic state regimes (e.g. Sharp, 1973; Chenoweth and Stephan, 2011). Yet, little is known about its applicability in jihadist proto-states, that is, territories governed by militant jihadist groups. We argue that civil resistance is more likely to occur when jihadists impose a rule that local populations perceive as alien and when organizational structures capable of collective nonviolent mobilization are activated. We develop this argument through a comparative analysis of three jihadist proto-states: one in which manifest and organized civil resistance occurred (Islamic Emirate of Azawad in Mali in 2012), and two in which it did not: the Islamic State of Iraq (2006–2008) and the Islamic Principality of al-Mukalla in Yemen (2015–2016). Whereas the former was met with mainly armed resistance (the Sunni Awakening campaign), the latter saw neither armed nor unarmed organized and collective resistance by locals under its rule. We demonstrate how variation in the jihadists’ governing strategies (especially the degree of adaptation to local conditions) as well as in the social structures for mobilization (i.e. whether opposition was channeled through civil society networks or tribal networks) created different conditions for civil resistance. This study adds to a growing research discussion on civil resistance against rebel governance (e.g. Arjona, 2015; Kaplan, 2017). More broadly, our study is an innovative first attempt to bridge research on terrorism, rebel governance, and civil resistance, three fields that have been siloed in previous research.