Hundreds of civilians flee Mosul as IS loses grip on city

June 25, 2017 By administrator

mosul flee isis Iraqi forces are creating safe passage routes for civilians trapped by IS by dividing the militant group’s territory. Despite that effort, the UN said civilians under IS occupation face “almost unimaginable” danger.

The Iraqi army opened escape routes Saturday for hundreds of civilians trapped by fighting with “Islamic State” (IS) militants in Mosul’s Old City.

IS appears to be mounting a last stand in what was once the self-declared capital of its self-styled “caliphate.”

The Iraqi forces, trained in urban warfare by the US military, were channeling their attack along two perpendicular streets that come together in the center of the Old City. Their aim is to isolate the militants into four pockets.

Despite that effort, the United Nations issued an alarming warning Saturday that local civilians are in grave danger, claiming 12 were killed and hundreds injured Friday.

“Fighting is very intense in the Old City and civilians are at extreme, almost unimaginable risk. There are reports that thousands, maybe even tens of thousands, of people are being held as human shields [by Islamic State],” Lise Grande, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, said in a statement. “Hundreds of civilians, including children, are being shot.”

Iraqi officials are hoping to declare victory in the crucial city in the coming days, to coincide with the Muslim Eid holiday, which marks the end of Ramadan.

Fleeing to safety

Helicopter gunships were providing air support for the Iraqi ground troops, firing on jihadi emplacements in the Old City.

Hundreds of civilians took advantage of the safe corridors to flee to the safety of the government-held parts of Mosul, west of the Old City. At least 100 civilians reached safety during one 20-minute period on Saturday.

Some were injured and carrying malnourished children. “My baby only had bread and water for the past eight days,” one mother said.

Iraqis fleeing the Old City of Mosul But more than 100,000 people, of whom half are thought to be

children, remain trapped in IS territory, which is now less than 2 square kilometers (1.2 square miles).

Journalists killed

A land mine claimed the lives of three journalists in Mosul this week. Veteran French war correspondent Veronique Robert, 54, who was wounded in the land mine blast that killed two of her colleagues in Mosul earlier this week, has died of her injuries, her employers France Televisions announced Saturday.

She was working on a story with her French colleague Stephan Villeneuve, 48, and Iraqi Kurdish reporter Bakhtiyar Addad, 41, when the land mine exploded on Monday, killing Villeneuve and Addad almost immediately.

A fourth journalist with them, Samuel Forey, suffered light injuries.

The fall of Mosul would essentially end the Iraqi half of the IS “caliphate” as a quasi-state structure. But the militants would still hold sizable tracts of mostly rural territory in both Iraq and Syria.

It was in Mosul in the summer of 2014 that IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced himself to the world for the first time as the “caliph,” or ruler of all Muslims. Mosul’s population at the time was more than 2 million.

Raqqa, the IS’ so-called capital in Syria, is also under siege by a US-backed Kurdish coalition. It is thought to be only a matter of time before the jihadis lose their grip there as well.

bik/sms (Reuters, dpa, AFP, AP)

Over 150,000 Iraqis flee amid operations to liberate western Mosul

March 16, 2017 By administrator

Iraq says more than 150,000 people have fled fighting in and around the western side of Mosul since security forces launched an operation to retake the area from Daesh terrorists.

According to Iraq’s Ministry of Migration and Displaced, civilians continue to leave Mosul’s western side as armed forces are struggling to dislodge Daesh terrorists from their last urban stronghold in the country.

The ministry said Thursday that 152,857 people have so far fled the operation zone since February 19, when the battle began.

In the figures released on Wednesday, the International Organization for Migration had put the number of those who have escaped at nearly 100,000.

Iraqi forces and allied fighters had gained control of the eastern side of Mosul in January, after 100 days of fighting.

They have managed to liberate several areas of western Mosul, a city divided into two halves by Tigris River.

On Thursday morning, Iraqi soldiers were trying to encircle Mosul’s Old City to bottle up Daesh elements, but military officials say the operations have been slowed due to bad weather as well as the bombs and booby traps planted across the combat area.

“Operations in the Mosul west Old City have been halted on Thursday due to bad, rainy weather. We can’t advance without airstrikes cover due to the fog,” Reuters quoted an Iraqi Rapid Response unit as saying.

A federal police officer confirmed the halt and said commanders were meeting to adjust their plans.

“The new offensive plans should adapt with the difficult terrain of the complicated, narrow alleys,” he said.

Federal Police Major General Haidar Dhirgham also said the complete liberation of Mosul to take at least a month.

“I will not tell you one or two weeks, because that’s not true, but within one or two months it will be completely liberated,” he said.

Syria: Raqqa Civilians Flee Airstrikes as Kurds, Jihadists Clash

May 25, 2016 By administrator

Raqa Syria U.S.-led coalition warplanes carried out intense airstrikes Tuesday on Raqqa, the de facto Syrian capital of the Islamic State group, a monitoring group said, continuing days of air-raids that appear to be aimed at demoralizing jihadist fighters before an offensive by Kurdish-led forces on villages to the north of the city.

The airstrikes appear targeted mostly on IS defensive positions on the outskirts of the city. This may be to try to avoid civilian casualties, although civilian deaths have been reported.

Raqqa political activists have been warning that IS is using civilians as human shields, spreading fighters and their weaponry around civilian areas and housing militants in residential blocks.

Leaders of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-dominated coalition that also includes a mixed bag of small Sunni Arab armed groups and some Syriac and Turkmen community defense forces, announced Tuesday it had started an offensive to liberate Raqqa from the Islamic State.

Americans in combat mode?

SDF spokesmen said U.S. commandos are embedding with their fighters in the offensive and posted videos purportedly showing this. U.S. officials deny American soldiers are taking on combat roles in the fighting and insist U.S. Special Forces won’t be exchanging fire with IS.

Colonel Steve Warren, the spokesman for the U.S.-led international coalition against IS, says U.S. Special Forces personnel are only providing assistance and advice to the SDF in the battle, but they are not on the front line. “We are in their off centers and headquarters providing advice,” he said.

U.S. officials, and some Kurdish officials, are also cautioning the objective of the military operation is to seize villages and territory north and west of Raqqa rather than to seek to retake the beleaguered city. The objective, they say, is to squeeze the city and further isolate it.

Civilians urged to leave

Some Western officials concede the SDF doesn’t have the capability yet to mount a full-scale assault on the city. That has prompted political activists to question why the international coalition has been air-dropping leaflets in the past few days on Raqqa urging civilians to flee the city, implying that an assault is in the offing.

Civilians flee to countryside

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group that relies on a network of activists inside Syria, reported Wednesday sharp clashes between SDF and IS forces around villages close to Ain Issa, 56 kilometers north of Raqqa. The monitoring group also said dozens of civilians left Raqqa city Wednesday and headed into the western countryside.

Meanwhile, Turkish military officials have warned their U.S. counterparts that Turkey will not accept American-backed Kurdish-led forces crossing the Euphrates River to mount assaults on two other IS-held towns, Manbij and Jarabulus.

Reports recently suggested the Turks may have been reducing their objections to Kurdish-led forces moving west of the Euphrates, but in a meeting with General Joseph Votel, head of U.S. Central Command, deputy chief of the Turkish general staff Yaşar Güler warned Turkey still considers the Azaz-Jarablus line as a “red line” when it comes to the Kurdish-led forces.

Thousands of Iraqi civilians flee Mosul, As Iraqi army launched a major offensive

March 28, 2016 By administrator

(AFP) MAKHMOUR— Thousands of desperate civilians were fleeing fighting Sunday on the new front opened by Iraqi forces against the Islamic State group south of the city of Mosul.

Families crammed in the back of pickup trucks, sometimes bringing dead and wounded with them, emerged from the dust after crossing the front line and were met by Kurdish forces.

Iraqi army troops and allied paramilitary fighters on Thursday launched a major offensive aimed at retaking the northern Nineveh province, the capital of which, Mosul, is the main hub of IS in Iraq.

The forces have been advancing from their base in Makhmur towards the town of Qayyarah, about 60 kilometres (35 miles) south of Mosul.

Growing numbers of civilians have been fleeing the advance to Makhmur where they are being assisted by Kurdish peshmerga forces.

“So far we have received around 3,000 people and the numbers are growing every day,” Ali Khodeir Ahmed, a member of Nineveh’s provincial council, told AFP in Makhmur.

“But there are no services offered to them by the Iraqi government, we have to put them up in a stadium in Makhmur,” he said.

The Iraqi government has described the advance as the first phase of what is expected to be a long and difficult operation to retake Mosul, the country’s second city and the largest urban centre in IS’s cross-border “caliphate”.

In the desert west of Makhmur, dust storms were whipped up by the line of vehicles fleeing IS-held territory, including a pickup carrying four women and 10 children in the back.

‘Entire families have died’

A bearded man in a yellow dishdasha traditional gown emerged from the dust, holding the body of a young girl wrapped in a blanket.

“She is dead, she is dead,” he cried, his face caked in dust.

His daughter, whose back was riddled with shrapnel when shells rained down on their escape, was covered in blood.

“Some entire families have died,” the father said.

The battle has so far focused on four villages west of Makhmur. Qayyarah, an area that includes a former air base and an oil facility, lies to the west, on the other bank of the Tigris River.

Smain Nuweis fled the village of Kharbardan with his family of seven squeezed into the back of his Opel.

“We have seen a lot of suffering,” the 28-year-old said. “And it got worse now with the shelling.”

“Daesh will not allow the people to flee, they want them to stay,” said Nuweis, using an Arabic name for IS.

The provincial council official urged the government to do more for the flow of displaced people, who were given little more than water upon reaching the peshmerga.

“We need to open camps and provide urgent assistance. These people’s situation is very bad, they were barely able to take any belongings with them,” said Ali Khodeir Ahmed.

More than 3.3 million people have been displaced by conflict in Iraq since the start of 2014, according to figures from the United Nations.

IS seized control of large parts of Iraq in 2014, with Iraqi forces collapsing in the face of a lightning advance. Backed by a US-led coalition, Iraq has been clawing back territory from the jihadists in recent months.

Diyarbakir: Hundreds Kurds flee southeast Turkey warzone as 23 killed, curfew expanded

January 28, 2016 By administrator

kurd flee Hundreds of people have fled the mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, located in southeastern Turkey, as authorities have extended the curfew there after 23 people were killed in street battles, including three Turkish soldiers and 20 Kurdish fighters.

Heavy gunfire continued on Wednesday in the ancient Sur district of Diyarbakir amid clashes between authorities and militants said to be members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been outlawed by Ankara, Turkish Dogan news agency reported.

Three Turkish soldiers were killed in Sur when militants fired on them with rifles and a rocket launcher, Reuters cited security sources as saying.

Turkey’s army also confirmed that it had killed 11 alleged PKK in the town of Cizre near the Syrian border, and nine others in Sur on Tuesday. The Turkish army claims it has killed 134 Kurdish fighters in the ancient Sur district since December. The district has also witnessed severe damage since then.

The 24-hour curfew zone has been extended to five more districts in Diyarbakir, according to the district governor’s office. The curfew bans residents from leaving their homes and forbids observers and reporters from entering the areas when clashes are taking place.

After alleged members of PKK reportedly dug trenches and set up explosive devices, the curfew was put in place “restore public order,” the district governor’s office said.

Local media reports estimate that more than 2,000 people left Sur following the fighting on Wednesday. People were seen fleeing with suitcases, bags, and bedding.

Watch Ruptly TV’s footage from the streets of Diyarbakir below:

https://youtu.be/LgUJ3Y6CuhE

Turkey’s state early in the morning started to warn people that they have to leave their houses. And right now thousands of people are trying to leave Sur district, the ancient part of the city,” Harun Ercan, a Diyarbakir resident, told RT.

“This armed conflict continues to create new tragedies and these people don’t know what to do. While these operations continue, gross human rights violations are committed by Turkey’s security forces,” Ercan added.

Turkish authorities have introduced curfews in several Kurdish-majority towns since the peace process with the PKK collapsed in the summer of 2015.

Clashes between Turkish forces and Kurdish PKK fighters have been ongoing since July. Turkey’s authorities maintain that all of those killed during the security operations in the country’s southeast have been PKK members.

However, the Turkish Human Rights Foundation reported that at least 198 civilians, including 39 children, have been killed in military operations in the area since August.

Kurds have long been campaigning for the right to self-determination and greater autonomy in Turkey, where they are the largest ethnic minority. In late December, a congress of Kurdish nongovernmental organizations called for Turkey’s southeastern regions to be granted autonomy via constitutional reforms.

Turkish security forces launched a large-scale security operation in southeastern part of the country on December 14.

Human Rights Watch criticized the curfews, stating that they make it impossible to monitor causes of deaths. “Many people have died in circumstances which are extremely difficult to scrutinize because of the curfews,” The Guardian quoted Emma Sinclair-Webb, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch, as saying.

Turkish occupied Kurdistan: Some 100,000 People Flee Homes Amid Clashes Between Ankara, PKK

December 24, 2015 By administrator

More than 100,000 people were displaced due to the Turkish forces’ operations against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), according to Turkey’s Interior Ministry.

ANKARA (Sputnik) — Some 100,000 people have been displaced due to armed clashes between Turkish security forces and militants from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the country’s majority-Kurdish southeastern regions, Turkey’s Interior Ministry said on Thursday.

Severe clashes between Ankara forces and PKK militants have been arising sporadically since a July terror attack in the city of Suruc, which killed over 30 people, most of them Kurds. As Kurds killed two Turkish policemen soon after the attack, Ankara launched a military campaign against PKK. The clashes intensified earlier this week in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir.

The Turkish forces’ operations are being carried out in the southeastern districts of Diyarbakir, Silopi, Silvan, Sur and Cizre, where the PKK has a strong presence.

The authorities also declared a police curfew in area most affected by the armed clashes, with a population of 1.3 million civilians.

Over 100,000 of them have been forced to flee their homes due to the ongoing violence and domestic hardships, according to an Interior Ministry report that was cited by the Hurriyet newspaper.

According to the ministry, the security forces have taken control of eight of the 13 high-risk areas where the PKK militants were trying to establish autonomous areas, not controlled by the central government.

The Kurds, Turkey’s largest ethnic minority, are striving to create their own independent state and gain independence from Turkey. The PKK was founded in the late 1970s to promote the self-determination for the Kurdish community. The PKK is designated as a terrorist group by Turkey.

The Kurdish struggle for independence gave rise to a conflict between Ankara and various Kurdish militant groups that has been ongoing since 1984.

Young Kurds flee Iraqi Kurdistan due to politics, not Islamic State, “Brain-Drain”

September 4, 2015 By administrator

By Sarkawt Shamsuldeen

Photo: AFP

WASHINGTON,— War and persecution are cited as the main reasons behind the flow of refugees, especially from countries such as Iraq and Syria. However, factors motivating young Kurdish people and families to risk their lives to reach European countries are not wars or persecutions by terrorist organizations. According to analysts, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) is facing many challenges. But the threat of the Islamic State, or IS, is a minor one, at least for young people leaving the region for Europe.

Before the current crisis, Western media coverage of Kurdistan focused on economic prosperity and stable security.

– Iraq’s Kurdish Region Sees Economic Boom (VOA, 2012)
– Kurdistan: In the ‘other Dubai’, an economic boom (The Star, 2012)
– Iraqi Kurdistan’s economic revival (BBC, 2013)
– Kurdistan: the other Iraq (The Washington Post, 2011)

Apparently, the Kurdish honeymoon ended,

The Western media were obsessed with fancy titles when referring to Iraqi Kurdistan, but these words are irrelevant these days. According to Kurdistan Parliament’s financial committee, the KRG’s debt ceiling reached $17 billion in 2014 and the region’s annual budget drastically decreased to $3 billion from $12 billion in 2013.

The threat of IS is still imminent to the region, but IS is not on the offensive along Kurdish borders. The Peshmerga have been successful in regaining control of most of the disputed and Kurdish-populated territories, except for Sinjar district. The region is now enjoying international support to enhance its military capacity. Unlike the Iraqi Army, Peshmerga have the trust of the Kurdish people as well as the West. However, reports show that thousands of Iraqi Kurds left to Europe in less than six months.

The Kurdish media have been reporting on the new flow of young Kurds who left the region over the past six months. I have personally received dozens of messages, phone calls, and emails from my fellow Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan. These are mostly people I don’t know, but they know me or at least know where I live due to my job as NRT’s Washington Bureau Chief. They all seek my advice on how to get to the United States or how to get a U.S. visa. They also ask if there is any chance to get to Canada as rumors have convinced them that the Canadian Government welcomes refugees “easily.”

On September 2, I was on NRT’s Panorama show with two other colleagues, Barzan Hassan from Belgium and Sarhang Hars from London. Barzan was covering the plight of refugees in Belgium. He was surrounded by refugees who arrived in the country over several days. They were all from Iraqi Kurdistan. Barzan turned the mic to a few of them to express their views on why they chose to leave their country.

They appeared to be very tired and spoke with anger. “It was very easy to arrive here. It took me only 35 days, and it is very safe,” said one of the refugees talking to the NRT correspondent in Belgium. “I encourage everyone to leave Kurdistan because there is no life there, no basic services, no hope for a better life,” he added.

There was another individual who who was chanting for Europe in front of the camera. “Long live Europe, long live Europe!” he said. Barzan also talked about the severe situation in the camps, and that most of the refugees are not in good condition, but they still prefer to stay there and seek asylum.

After the show,

I spoke to Barzan about the reality on the ground. He told me that the people who left Kurdistan were very angry and ready to face death rather than stay in the region. He told me that none of these individuals mentioned IS as the main reason for leaving the country. “They all talk about the failure of the political system (e.g., the crisis of the Kurdistan Presidency), lack of basic services, unemployment, and a lack of anti-corruption efforts,” Barzan said. The difference in this new generation of Kurdistan’s immigrants to the West is that the majority of these people are educated and newly graduated youth. “They are not people who can’t work, but they all have either a degree and/or high skills and can compete in the new market. Some of them were former government employees,” Barzan concluded.

According to the informal statistics, 40% of Kurdish students who study in the United States have sought asylum or found other ways to stay in the country. I spoke to few of them via phone, Facebook and other means. These are students who are sponsored either by the government or their families to study in the U.S. They want to stay because they believe there is no “life” in that part of the world. “What am I going to do there? Government employees are not getting paid for three months; there is zero chance that I will get hired, let alone convenient pay,” 28-year-old Ashton (Name changed for security) said. Ashton is studying computer science in the U.S. He was frustrated about the threat of IS as well. “IS is just a few miles away from Erbil. I am from the town of Makhmour, and it is under IS rocket-fire everyday,” he added. “Am I going to go back to Makhmour to be killed or slaughtered by IS at any time? Of course no,” he concluded.

By Sarkawt Shamsuldeen

Source: eKurd

Yezidi Families Flee From ISIS to Armenia

August 1, 2015 By administrator

YEREVAN (RFE/RL)—Three ethnic Yezidi families have taken refuge in Armenia after leaving their homes in Iraqi Kurdistan, close to territories controlled by the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS). Members of Armenia’s Yezidi community welcomed the families in Armenia on Thursday.

Boris Murazi, the head of the association of Sinjar Yezidis, organized a campaign in a Yerevan park on Friday to try to raise funds as well as collect food and clothing for the families, which in total are nineteen people, including seven children, so as to help them cope with the difficulties of life in a foreign country during their first days of stay.

“Before they left and moved here they lived just five kilometers from where ISIS forces are based. And if Kurdish forces made another retreat, these people would have been targeted again,” Murazi told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.

“These people had an option of going to Europe, but I think that from the point of view of Yezidis it is better to be in Armenia. So, we helped them come here and have provided them with accommodation.”

Armenia, an ethnically homogenous country with a population of about 3 million people, is home to some 50,000 Yezidis, which makes them the country’s largest ethnic and religious minority.

Last year ISIS forces displaced more than 400,000 Yezidis from their homes in northern Iraq. More than 20,000 were killed and more than 5,000 Yezidi women and girls are still being held captive. Thousands more are still missing.

Responding to appeals from leaders of Armenia’s Yezidi community, the Armenian government last August decided to provide humanitarian assistance to Yezidis suffering due to the onslaught of ISIS in northern Iraq.

Earlier this year, the National Assembly of Armenia issued a statement condemning the persecution of religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria at the hands of ISIS. All six parliamentary factions backed the statement that singled out the Yezidi community in Iraq as a target for ISIS extremists.

Fadl Dshar, a 17-year-old Yezidi refugee, said all he knew about Armenia was that it is a non-Muslim nation. He said that at the time, security was most important for his family.

“We have escaped from ISIS militants. It was no longer secure for us to stay in a Muslim country,” he said.

Dshar also claimed pressures from Kurdish authorities which he said persecuted Yezidis for their public activities.

The three Yezidi families that have arrived in Armenia are staying in the western province of Armavir. They say that they will look for jobs to earn a living in Armenia.

“It’s important that we are away from Kurdistan. At least our lives are not in danger,” Dshar said.

At least 160,000 Iraqi Christians flee Mosul: Iraqi MP

December 13, 2014 By administrator

At least 160,000 Iraqi Christians have been forced out of their homes in the city of Mosul after the ISIL Takfiri terrorists seized Iraq’s second-largest city in June, a Christian lawmaker says.

“Christian families have been displaced from the city because of violence and death threats from this terrorist group,” the parliament member, Emad Yukhana, said on Saturday.

He added that few European countries had taken in some of the displaced Iraqi Christians.

“The majority of Christians have taken shelter in [northern Iraqi semi-autonomous] Kurdistan [region],” the lawmaker said.

Thousands of Iraqi Christians have been forced out of their homes in the city of Mosul in July following an ultimatum by the ISIL terrorists to them to convert to Islam, pay taxes or face death.

ISIL militants took control of Mosul in a lightning advance on June 10, which was followed by the fall of Tikrit, located 140 kilometers (87 miles) northwest of the capital, Baghdad. Tikrit has been reportedly retaken by the Iraqi army.

The militants have since been controlling some areas in northern and northwestern Iraq, committing crimes in those areas including mass execution of civilians as well as army troops and officers.

Some 1.2 million Christians were living in Iraq before the US-led invasion of the country in 2003, which overthrew longtime dictator Saddam Hussein. The figure has since dwindled to about 500,000.

The Takfiri militants have been carrying out horrific acts of violence, including public decapitations and crucifixions, against all Syrian and Iraqi communities such as Shias, Sunnis, Kurds and Christians.

Syrian rebels (FSA) abandon Aleppo, leader flees to Turkey

November 17, 2014 By administrator

Murat Yetkin

Some 14,000 militants of the Syrian rebel group have abandoned Aleppo, while its commander has fled to Turkey, according to Turkish security sources.

The Free Syrian Army (FSA), the recognized armed opposition group against the Bashar al-Assad in Syria, has ceased its resistance in Aleppo, Syria’s second biggest city, withdrawing its 14,000 militia from the city, a ranking Turkish security source told the Hürriyet Daily News on Nov. 17.

“Its leader Jamal Marouf has fled to Turkey,” confirmed the source, who asked not to be named. “He is currently being hosted and protected by the Turkish state.”

The source did not give an exact date of the escape but said it was within the last two weeks, that is, the first half of November. The source declined to give Marouf’s whereabouts in Turkey.

As a result, the FSA has lost control over the Bab al-Hawa border gate (opposite from Turkey’s Cilvegözü in Reyhanlı), which is now being held by a weak coalition of smaller groups led by Ahrar al-Sham.

The source said some of the weaponry delivered to the FSA by the U.S.-led coalition in its fight against both Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) and the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria might have fallen into the hands of Ahrar al-Sham and al-Nusra, the Syria branch of al-Qaeda.

A weakening Western-supported opposition in Syria could not only put Aleppo in jeopardy, but also weaken the U.S.-led coalition in Syria and Iraq, which might affect the positions of other important players in the region, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel.