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Another Kurdish city in northern Iraq has fallen to insurgents, forcing thousands to flee and raising fresh fears about the offensive capabilities of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, known as Isis.
At least 15,000 mostly Christian Iraqis fled the town of Qaraqosh after Isis forces stormed the enclave, which lies 90km from Erbil, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s capital and commercial hub.
“A Kurdish commander came and told me, ‘We can’t hold the town, so we’re going to retreat,’” said Yohanna Petros Moshe, archbishop of Mosul, who fled to Erbil at midnight in a convoy. “The Kurdish leadership informed the people that they had to get out.”
Isis stormed through northern Iraq in a lightning June offensive in which it took control of Mosul, Tikrit and other cities and seized US-supplied military equipment from fleeing Iraqi troops. Kurds, allies of the west, left their semi-autonomous enclave and flooded into parts of the country they had long coveted. They held the territory for two and a half months before the latest Isis advances prompted them to call for international help.
“There’s an urgent need for the UN Security Council to intervene,” said Dindar Zebari, an official of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Erbil. “We need international intervention by our allies, especially the US.”
Last week Kurdish forces lost to isis populated by Iraq’s Yazidi religious minority, sending a wave of displaced people, estimated by the UN at 150,000, across the country’s north and into Turkey and Syria.
“Our resources are stretched and we are under so much pressure because the needs are so immense,” said Julie Touma, a spokeswoman for Unicef in Erbil. “We’re talking about a massive exodus of children who became displaced, who fall ill, who die needlessly
The UN has reported that 40,000 people, including 25,000 children, remain stranded in the mountains to the east of the town of Sinjar. Witnesses described the bodies of civilians who had died of hunger or exposure lying in the rocky crevices of the mountains and hilltops. Efforts by the Baghdad government to airdrop water to the stranded Yazidis ended in failure.
Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkish foreign minister, said Ankara had provided the Iraqi authorities with “a very significant aid package”, to be supplied by helicopter to Yazidis on the Sinjar mountains.
Isis considers the Yazidi faith, an ancient religion rooted in Zoroastrianism, heretical and its followers devil-worshippers deserving of death. Vian Dakhil, a member of parliament representing the Yazidi community, claimed 500 Yazidis had been executed. “There is a campaign of mass genocide against Yazidis,” she said in an emotional televised speech from the floor of the assembly before collapsing in tears.
In recent days, Isis forces have also launched an attack on the town of Makhmour, 55km southwest of Erbil, the Mosul dam and several other enclaves approaching the borders of the autonomous Kurdistan region in an offensive that has increased international concern about the capability of the Kurdish armed forces, the peshmerga.
“If we thought that the peshmerga was going to be able to hold a very hard line, we now have to face the reality that the ground fight between Isis and peshmerga forces is not necessarily going to favour the peshmerga,” said Jessica Lewis, a research director at the Institute for the Study of War and a former US armed forces intelligence officer. “What appears to be escalating in Washington now is an understanding that Isis has not culminated, it is still on the move in areas that show incredible strengths beyond what we estimated.”
Washington policymakers have begun agitating for the Obama administration to intervene militarily on behalf of the Kurds; the US has already reportedly dispatched fresh batches of military equipment to them. “It would be wise for the US to lend air support, through the use of drones, to the Kurdish forces,” US Congressman Ed Royce, House foreign affairs committee chairman, told the journal The Hill this week. “Because if we do not, it is going to be a humanitarian nightmare of unspeakable proportions.”
On Thursday French foreign minister Laurent Fabius called for the UN Security Council to hold an emergency meeting over the situation in Iraq.
At least 15,000 mostly Christian Iraqis fled the town of Qaraqosh after Isis forces stormed the enclave, which lies 90km from Erbil, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s capital and commercial hub.
“A Kurdish commander came and told me, ‘We can’t hold the town, so we’re going to retreat,’” said Yohanna Petros Moshe, archbishop of Mosul, who fled to Erbil at midnight in a convoy. “The Kurdish leadership informed the people that they had to get out.”
Isis stormed through northern Iraq in a lightning June offensive in which it took control of Mosul, Tikrit and other cities and seized US-supplied military equipment from fleeing Iraqi troops. Kurds, allies of the west, left their semi-autonomous enclave and flooded into parts of the country they had long coveted. They held the territory for two and a half months before the latest Isis advances prompted them to call for international help.
“There’s an urgent need for the UN Security Council to intervene,” said Dindar Zebari, an official of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Erbil. “We need international intervention by our allies, especially the US.”
Last week Kurdish forces lost to isis populated by Iraq’s Yazidi religious minority, sending a wave of displaced people, estimated by the UN at 150,000, across the country’s north and into Turkey and Syria.
“Our resources are stretched and we are under so much pressure because the needs are so immense,” said Julie Touma, a spokeswoman for Unicef in Erbil. “We’re talking about a massive exodus of children who became displaced, who fall ill, who die needlessly
The UN has reported that 40,000 people, including 25,000 children, remain stranded in the mountains to the east of the town of Sinjar. Witnesses described the bodies of civilians who had died of hunger or exposure lying in the rocky crevices of the mountains and hilltops. Efforts by the Baghdad government to airdrop water to the stranded Yazidis ended in failure.
Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkish foreign minister, said Ankara had provided the Iraqi authorities with “a very significant aid package”, to be supplied by helicopter to Yazidis on the Sinjar mountains.
Isis considers the Yazidi faith, an ancient religion rooted in Zoroastrianism, heretical and its followers devil-worshippers deserving of death. Vian Dakhil, a member of parliament representing the Yazidi community, claimed 500 Yazidis had been executed. “There is a campaign of mass genocide against Yazidis,” she said in an emotional televised speech from the floor of the assembly before collapsing in tears.
In recent days, Isis forces have also launched an attack on the town of Makhmour, 55km southwest of Erbil, the Mosul dam and several other enclaves approaching the borders of the autonomous Kurdistan region in an offensive that has increased international concern about the capability of the Kurdish armed forces, the peshmerga.
“If we thought that the peshmerga was going to be able to hold a very hard line, we now have to face the reality that the ground fight between Isis and peshmerga forces is not necessarily going to favour the peshmerga,” said Jessica Lewis, a research director at the Institute for the Study of War and a former US armed forces intelligence officer. “What appears to be escalating in Washington now is an understanding that Isis has not culminated, it is still on the move in areas that show incredible strengths beyond what we estimated.”
Washington policymakers have begun agitating for the Obama administration to intervene militarily on behalf of the Kurds; the US has already reportedly dispatched fresh batches of military equipment to them. “It would be wise for the US to lend air support, through the use of drones, to the Kurdish forces,” US Congressman Ed Royce, House foreign affairs committee chairman, told the journal The Hill this week. “Because if we do not, it is going to be a humanitarian nightmare of unspeakable proportions.”
On Thursday French foreign minister Laurent Fabius called for the UN Security Council to hold an emergency meeting over the situation in Iraq.
