Yazidi Volunteers Prepare to Fight Back Against ISIS Militants - NBC News
Yazidi Volunteers Prepare to Fight Back Against ISIS Militants
Kurdish militants in Syria have trained hundreds of Yazidi volunteers to fight ISIS forces in Iraq, a member of the armed Kurdish YPG said on Sunday. Reuters photographer Youssef Boudlal spent Saturday at a training camp in northeastern Syria on the border with Iraqi Kurdistan, where he saw 55 Yazidis being trained to fight the Islamic State.
Dressed in green military fatigues and sweating in temperatures of over 100 degrees, young and old men were taught how to use assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. After several days' training they will be sent back to Mount Sinjar to fight, Anas Hani of the Kurdish YPG said. "In the past ten days, hundreds have graduated. And we are training more."
Right now, the PKK/PYD/YPG who is marxist/Turkish/Syrian in nature are recruiting all different sect under their umbrella, unifying them with Marxism.
The PKK/PYD/YPG has prove to be a better fighter than the corrupt Iraqi Kurd.
The PKK/PYD/YPG is now sheltering and saving all minorities giving them food and meanwhile, recruiting their men, and even women into their ranks.
Kurds mobilise to fight Islamic State | Green Left Weekly
In early August, IS forces seized the town of Shengal in western Iraq. Normally inhabited by about 30,000 people, this is the historic centre of the Kurdish-speaking Yezidi community, which practices an ancient religion which predates Christianity and Islam.
IS regards Yezidis as “devil-worshippers” who should be killed. The IS wanted to control the area so that it would be able to more easily supply their forces in Syria.
The town was defended by peshmerga of Barzani’s KDP. The IS forces attacked and at a certain point the peshmerga withdrew.
The reasons for this are not yet clear, but it left the people completely exposed. A mass exodus then took place as tens of thousands of terrified people streamed out of the town to seek refuge on stony barren Mount Shengal to the north.
Hundreds have since died of thirst, starvation and exposure. The IS has massacred hundreds of Yezidis and kidnapped large numbers of women.
Ekurd.net said on August 5 that PYD leader Saleh Muslim
sharply criticised the withdrawal of the KDP peshmerga from Shengal.
Muslim said: “The peshmerga left the people there alone and fled. On such a day such a response was expected of the YPG and they did [what was expected of them] … the people said what they saw.
“The peshmerga left them alone. There were no clashes between the peshmerga and the ISIS in the region. They withdrew without a fight. Of course there must have been a mistake or it is possible the wrong order was given. If not I do not think the peshmerga would have fled from the fighting.
The YPG had long warned the KDP that the town was not adequately defended. In a dramatic intervention, a large YPG-YPJ force entered Iraq on August 3 through the border crossing at Til Kocher.
It first had to clear the border area of the IS gangs. At the same time, it pushed toward Mount Shengal and helped escort large numbers of refugees to safety in Rojava and Kurdistan.
The peshmerga have since regrouped and a large force has been sent to retake the town. The PKK has also sent militia units to Shengal from its camps in Kurdistan. Some 700 Yezidi refugees have joined the YPG and are taking part in the effort to recapture Shengal.
At first ignoring the YPG-YPJ and HPG-YJA STAR, the peshmerga have since been forced to conduct joint operations against the IS killers. The prestige and authority of Barzani and the KDP would seem to have been badly tarnished. (Barzani announced that the military commanders who withdrew would be subject to an investigation.) As of August 10, Shengal has yet to be completely retaken.
Turkey’s deceptive game
Turkey has been giving significant support to the IS. Large numbers of foreign Islamists seeking to join the IS have freely transited Turkey. Wounded IS fighters have crossed into Turkey for medical treatment.
But Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also wants Kurdish support for his August presidential bid. Kurds make up about 20% of the population. Erdogan has made several concessions to the long-oppressed Kurdish community, mainly on the use of their language.
Turkey also has close relations with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). About 1300 Turkish firms are active in the area; each year Turkey exports billions of dollars of goods to Kurdistan and takes most of its oil.
PKK leaders have called on Turkey to declare publicly where it stands as regards the IS.
The recent setbacks for the peshmerga have turned the spotlight on the KRG. The PYD and PKK are socialist-oriented groups. The KRG is run by two conservative nationalist parties, the KDP and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) led by Jalal Talabani.
A great deal of investment money has poured into Kurdistan recently, much of it going into building fancy shopping malls. Corruption is widespread and the gap between rich and poor is growing.
The peshmerga is not a true national army. It is largely divided between the KDP and PUK. The KDP is hostile to the PYD. It has tried to establish an armed presence in Rojava but has been blocked by the PYD.
Adding to tensions, in April, the KRG dug a 26-kilometre-long trench along its border with northern Syria. The PYD and the PKK denounced it as project to isolate the Kurdish areas of Syria.
The KRG says it is aimed at stopping terrorists. There was certainly no prior consultation. Kurds on both sides of the trench protested.
The KRG is also short of funds since the central Iraq government has stopped paying its regional subsidy. The peshmerga’s weapons are old and no match for the new US heavy equipment the IS has acquired.
The PYD has been calling for unity of the Kurdish struggle for a long time. In the face of recent setbacks, the KRG has been forced to recognise that the Kurds face a national crisis of the very first order.
It seems that some sort of common front of the YPG-YPJ, PKK-aliged forces, peshmerga and exiled Iranian Kurds is being established.