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.
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.
A slate of recent papers and policy briefings have advised Western governments to reverse their designation of the Syrian group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) as a terrorist organization. Such questionable policy recommendations are usually justified by arguing that HTS, under the leadership of Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, is a viable negotiating partner that is willing and able to rein in more dangerous global jihadist groups in Syria.
At the beginning of the Syrian conflict in 2011, the Iranian government announced it would provide strategic support to the Bashar al-Assad regime without direct military intervention. However, as the conflict wore on and opposition forces began to wrest control of areas from the regime, Iran directly intervened in various Syrian fronts to prevent the fall of Assad, particularly between 2013 and 2018.
The figure was responsible for planning, funding, and approving trans-regional al Qaeda attacks
A senior al Qaeda leader has been killed in a drone strike in Syria, U.S. defense officials confirmed to Fox News Thursday.
Salim Abu-Ahmad was killed in a U.S. airstrike near Idlib, Syria on Sept. 20. He was responsible for planning, funding, and approving trans-regional al Qaeda attacks.
Tehran used to continuously assure the West that the danger did not lie in Shia Islam to global peace, and the episode of 9/11 occurred on the right time for the Iranians to prove their claim. Though Irans then President Mohammad Khatami provided intelligence to the United States and IRGC-QFs (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Quds Force) Qassem Soleimani oversaw the contact to fight ‘war on terror’ against the Taliban but things could not move towards negotiations between Washington and Tehran. Following Afghanistan`s invasion, George W. Bush in January 2002 labeled Iran as ‘axis of evil’ along with North Korea and Iraq. Because Bush administration wanted to emphasize that these states possess weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and support terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda and pose threat to US.