Download or read book Islamic State the Kurds and the Future of Iraq written by Gareth Stansfield and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In late June 2014, ISIS/Islamic State captured Mosul - the bastion of nationalist sentiment and centre of Arab Sunni political, economic, and cultural life in northern Iraq. Baghdad's writ was spectacularly compromised as vast areas of Iraq and Syria --Raqqa, Hassakeh and Deir az-Zur in Syria; Mosul, Fallujah and the fringes of Baghdad-fell to 'Caliph' Abu Bakr's shock troops. The leadership of the Kurdistan Region responded by securing its southern boundary in 'the disputed territories' while the Kurds as a whole expanded the areas they controlled by taking the previously contested areas of Nineveh, Erbil and Kirkuk provinces - including the oil-city of Kirkuk. With its army devastated and the Islamic State seemingly unstoppable, Western powers once again returned to the skies of Iraq to defend the Kurds and Baghdad's Shia-dominated regime in Baghdad, now aided by Iranian government and irregular forces.0Charting the events of recent years and placing them in their wider historical context, Stansfield analyses how and why Islamic State achieved such astonishing successes, how Kurdish leaders responded while redefining their quest for greater autonomy, and how Baghdad confronted the new challenges and wider regional issues that crystallised in 'post-Mosul Iraq'.

Download or read book The Kurds in Iraq written by Kerim Yildiz and published by Pluto Press (UK). This book was released on 2004 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Kurds in Iraq by Kerim Yildiz, explores the key issues facing the Kurds in Iraq in the aftermath of the US-led invasion and chaos of the occupation. It is the most clear and up-to-date account of the problems that all political groups face in rebuilding the country, as well as exploring Kurdish links and international relations in the broader sense. It should be required reading for policy-makers and anyone interested in the current position of the Kurds in Iraq. Yildiz explores the impact of war and occupation on Iraqi Kurdistan, and in particular the crucial role of the city of Kirkuk in the post-war settlement. He also looks at how UN rifts potentially affect the Kurds; relations between Iraqi Kurds and Turkey; relations with Iran; and US policy towards the Kurds.

Download or read book The Future of Kurdistan in Iraq written by Brendan O'Leary and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2006-08-11 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Future of Kurdistan in Iraq appraises the consequences of the U.S.-led intervention in Iraq for its most neglected region.

Download or read book Beyond ISIS History and Future of Religious Minorities in Iraq written by Bayar Mustafa Sevdeen and published by Transnational Press London. This book was released on 2019 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book shares papers from a conference taking a deeper look at the victims of ISIS and beyond that all religious minorities of Iraq. This is the first book that considers all the religious minorities that existed in modern Iraq, including both historic communities and new groups that recently came with labour migration, especially to the Autonomous Region of Kurdistan. The book resulted from a conference in 2018 organized exactly at the site of the Simele Massacre in 1933. The campus of the American University of Kurdistan is located on the site of the first big massacre against a religious minority in Iraq. The conference entitled ‘Beyond ISIS: Minorities and Religious Diversity in Iraq and the Future of Êzîdî, Christians, Shabak, Yarsan, Mandeans and other Religious Minorities in the Middle East’ brought together Iraqi and international scholars, activists, and religious and community representatives. This book contains papers presented at the conference that included contributions on Iraq’s religious diversity and the historical and contemporary consequences of genocide and persecution on the religious minorities of Iraq.

Download or read book Iraq Politics Governance and Human Rights written by Congressional Research Congressional Research Service and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2014-12-11 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the 2011 U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq, reemergent sectarian and ethnic divisions have fueled a major challenge to Iraq's stability and to Iraq's non-Muslim minority communities. Many of Iraq's Sunni Arabs are willing to support even radical Sunni Islamist insurgents if doing so will reduce Shiite political domination. Iraq's Kurds have been separately embroiled in political and territorial disputes with Baghdad, particularly the Kurds' intent to separately export large volumes of oil produced in the Kurdish region. The political rifts-which were largely contained by the U.S. military until 2011-erupted in December 2013 into a sustained uprising led by the extremist group Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The group and its allies took control of several cities in Anbar Province in early 2014 and captured Mosul and several other mostly Sunni cities in June 2014, accompanied by a partial collapse of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF). The crisis has had some potentially serious consequences for Iraq's long-term future. The ISF collapse enabled the Kurds to seize control of the long-coveted city of Kirkuk and its crucial oil fields. And, the crisis has caused Shiite militia forces to revive; they are politically aligned not only with dominant Shiite factions in Iraq but also with Iran. These forces have helped defend Baghdad and other areas to compensate for the weakness of the ISF, but the militias have also reportedly committed human rights abuses against many Sunnis and reinforced Sunni resentment of the Iraqi government. The Islamic State's gains in Iraq have prompted a U.S. military response in Iraq and formulation of a broader strategy, articulated by President Obama on September 10 to try to defeat the Islamic State. The President's speech came as a new government headed by Shiite Prime Minister Haydar al-Abbadi was inaugurated in Iraq. U.S. officials assert that Abbadi's government is more inclusive of Sunnis than was the government of ex-Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, but many Sunnis apparently seek to assess his actions over an extended period of time before giving him their support. However, the government has reached a crucial agreement with the Iraqi Kurds over Kurdish oil exports, earning U.S. and other praise for inclusiveness and compromise. President Obama states that he has ruled out reintroducing U.S. combat troops to Iraq (or Syria). Since the crisis began in June, the Administration has authorized deployment of up to 3,000 military personnel to assess, advise, and train the ISF; gain intelligence on the Islamic State; and protect American personnel and facilities. Since early August, U.S. forces have been conducting air strikes against Islamic State positions in Iraq to assist efforts by Baghdad and the Kurds to reverse Islamic State gains and relieve IS pressure on Iraq's religious minorities. The Iraqi government is also receiving substantial military assistance from Iraq, helping Baghdad confront Islamic State power but also aggravating resentment by Iraq's Sunnis. The Administration has held discussions with Iran diplomatically on restoring stability to Iraq, but has repeatedly ruled out any direct cooperation with Tehran in Iraq. The Islamic State crisis upended what had been a relatively stable situation at the time U.S. forces left in December 2011. The last U.S. troops departed then in keeping with a November 2008 bilateral U.S.-Iraq Security Agreement (SA). At the time of the U.S. departure, the United States and Iraq had agreed to continue a number of security cooperation programs, including U.S. training for the ISF through an Office of Security Cooperation-Iraq (OSC-I) and a State Department police development program. However, those programs languished as Iraqi leaders sought to end U.S. political and military tutelage. Please see CRS Report R43612, The "Islamic State" Crisis and U.S. Policy, by Kenneth Katzman et al.

Download or read book Kurds in Iraq and Syria written by Congressional Research Service and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-01-17 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 2014, the United States and members of a coalition it leads have partnered with a politically diverse set of Kurdish groups to combat the Islamic State organization (IS, also known as ISIS/ISIL or by the Arabic acronym Da'esh). For background information on these groups and their relationships in the region, see CRS In Focus IF10350, The Kurds in Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Iran, by Jim Zanotti and Bolko J. Skorupski. The capabilities of various Kurdish ground forces have advanced some U.S. objectives in connection with ongoing anti-IS operations. At the same time, as these operations increasingly focus on predominantly Sunni Arab areas such as Mosul, Iraq, and Raqqah, Syria, U.S. officials are encouraging Kurdish forces to support and empower the combat and post-conflict administration profile of non-Kurdish forces that may have greater ethnic and political legitimacy with local populations. U.S. officials also seek to avoid having U.S. cooperation with Kurds significantly disrupt U.S. relations with other partners, including the Iraqi central government and NATO ally Turkey in light of those partners' respective concerns and operations on the ground in Iraq and northern Syria. Legal authorities enacted by Congress and the President permit the Administration to provide some arms and some Iraq/Syria anti-IS-related funding to Kurdish groups under certain conditions. In April 2016, the Defense Department announced that it would provide more than $400 million in assistance to pay and otherwise sustain Iraqi Kurdish fighters as part of an ongoing partnership that delivers U.S. assistance to Iraqi Kurds with the consent of the Iraqi national government. Some Members of Congress proposed legislation in the 114th Congress that would have extended or expanded U.S. cooperation with Kurdish groups under certain conditions. This report examines: the roles played by Iraqi Kurdish groups affiliated with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and by the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD)/People's Protection Units (YPG) in U.S. and coalition efforts to defeat the Islamic State; interactions Iraqi and Syrian Kurds have with other actors; benefits and challenges the Kurdish role presents for U.S. interests in the region; the outlook for military operations (such as against Mosul in Iraq and Raqqah in Syria) and political outcomes; humanitarian concerns regarding displaced persons in Kurdish-controlled areas, and human rights concerns regarding Kurdish forces' treatment of civilians in areas they capture; specific U.S. policy questions regarding current and future U.S.-Kurdish cooperation; and the broader trajectory of the U.S.-Kurdish partnership. U.S. military trainers and advisors have been based in KRG-controlled areas (along with other areas in Iraq) since 2014. The U.S. government has acknowledged that these advisors have periodically engaged in direct action missions in both Iraq and Syria. Since late 2015, U.S. officials have announced additional "advise and assist" deployments in Iraq and Syria.

Download or read book Legacy of Iraq written by Benjamin Isakhan and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2015-07-12 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'The Legacy of Iraq' critically reflects on the abject failure of the 2003 intervention to turn Iraq into a liberal democracy, underpinned by free-market capitalism, its citizens free to live in peace and prosperity. It argues that mistakes made by the coalition and the Iraqi political elite set a sequence of events in motion that have had devastating consequences for Iraq, the Middle East and for the rest of the world. Today, as the nation faces perhaps its greatest challenge in the wake of the devastating advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and another US-led coalition undertakes renewed military action in Iraq, understanding the complex and difficult legacies of the 2003 war could not be more urgent. Ignoring the legacies of the Iraq war and denying their connection to contemporary events could means that vital lessons are ignored and the same mistakes made again.

Download or read book The Future of Iraq written by Liam Anderson and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2014-12-09 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reordering Iraq is the lynchpin of America's successful involvement in the Middle East. The challenge may be impossible. The Future of Iraq provides a primer on the history and political dynamics of this pivotal state divided by ethnic, religious, and political antagonisms, and provocatively argues that the least discussed future of Iraq might be the best: Managed partition. Anderson and Stansfield incisively analyze the dilemmas of American policy. They suggest that even a significant American presence will not stabilize Iraq because it is an artificial state and its people have never shared a common identity. In addition the legacy of tyrannical rule and the primacy of political violence is eroded social bonds and entrenched tribal allegiances, fallow ground for democracy. They provide the basic information and the provocative analysis crucial to informed debate and decision.

Download or read book Invisible Nation written by Quil Lawrence and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2009-05-26 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American invasion of Iraq has been a success - for the Kurds. Kurdistan is an invisible nation, and the Kurds the largest ethnic group on Earth without a homeland, comprising some 25 million moderate Sunni Muslims living in the area around the borders of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Through a history dating back to biblical times, they have endured persecution and betrayal, surviving only through stubborn compromise with greater powers. They have always desired their own state, and now, accidentally, the United States may have helped them take a huge step toward that goal. As Quil Lawrence relates in his fascinating and timely study of the Iraqi Kurds, while their ambition and determination grow apace, their future will be largely dependent on whether America values a budding democracy in the region, or decides to yet again sacrifice the Kurds in the name of political expediency. Either way, the Kurdish north may well prove to be the defining battleground in Iraq, as the country struggles to hold itself together. At this extraordinary moment in the saga of Kurdistan, informed by his deep knowledge of the people and region, Lawrence's intimate and unflinching portrait of the Kurds and their heretofore quixotic quest offers a vital and original lens through which to contemplate the future of Iraq and the surrounding Middle East.

Download or read book The West s War Against Islamic State written by Andrew Mumford and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-01-28 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the 29th of June 2014 ISIS declared the establishment of a caliphate stretching across territories in Iraq and Syria. In response, Operation Inherent Resolve, a US-led 77 nation coalition, was launched to respond to the threat of Islamic State. The West's War Against Islamic State offers the first history of Operation Inherent Resolve and the West's war against ISIS, from its inception in 2014 to the fall of Raqqa in 2017. Andrew Mumford offers a comprehensive analysis and assessment of the military campaign deployed against ISIS in Syria and Iraq by examining the West's strategic objectives as well as the conflicting interests of rival powers, namely Russia, Iran and Turkey. By examining individual operational components of this military engagement such as drone usage, cyber warfare, special forces operations and sponsorship of guerrilla forces, this book offers a unique insight into the nature of modern warfare.

Download or read book ISIS written by Fawaz A. Gerges and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An authoritative introduction to ISIS—now expanded and revised to bring events up to the present The Islamic State stunned the world with its savagery, destructiveness, and military and recruiting successes. However, its most striking and distinctive characteristic was its capacity to build governing institutions and a theologically grounded national identity. What explains the rise of ISIS and the caliphate, and what does it portend for the future of the Middle East? In this book, one of the world’s leading authorities on political Islam and jihadism sheds new light on these questions. Moving beyond journalistic accounts, Fawaz Gerges provides a clear and compelling explanation of the deeper conditions that fuel ISIS. This new edition brings the story of ISIS to the present, covering key events—from the military defeat of its territorial state to the death of its leader al-Baghdadi—and analyzing how the ongoing Syrian, Iraqi, and Saudi-Iranian conflict could lead to ISIS’s revival.

Download or read book The Rise of Islamic State written by Patrick Cockburn and published by Leftword Books. This book was released on 2020 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though capable of staging spectacular attacks like 9/11, jihadist organizations were not a significant force on the ground when they first became notorious in the shape of al-Qa'ida at the turn of century. //Today, that's changed. Exploiting the missteps of the West's wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, as well as its misjudgments in relation to Syria and the uprisings of the Arab Spring, jihadist organizations, of which ISIS is the most important, are swiftly expanding. They now control a geographical territory greater in size than Britain or Michigan, stretching from the Sunni heartlands in the north and west of Iraq through a broad swath of north-east Syria. On the back of their capture of Mosul and much of northern Iraq in June 2014, the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has been declared the head of a new caliphate that demands the allegiance of all Muslims. The secular, democratic politics that were supposedly at the fore of the Arab Spring have been buried by the return of the jihadis writing with customary calmness and clarity, and drawing on unrivaled experience as a reporter in the region, Cockburn analyzes the unfolding of one of the West's greatest foreign policy debacles and the rise of the new jihadis.//Patrick Cockburn is currently a Middle East correspondent for the Independent. His book on Iraq's recent history, The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq, was a finalist for the National Book Critics' Circle Awards. He won the Martha Gellhorn Prize in 2005, the James Cameron Prize in 2006, and the Orwell Prize for Journalism in 2009. He was named Foreign Commentator of the Year by the Comment Awards in 2013.

Download or read book Republic of Dreams written by Nicole F. Watts and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2025-01-14 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A harrowing political history of Kurdish Iraq told through the extraordinary rags-to-riches story of a childhood refugee In the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, Iraqi president Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against his own people, the Iraqi Kurds. Five thousand people died in what became known as the Halabja Massacre, which has been deemed the worst chemical attack in history. Nicole F. Watts, a former journalist and now professor of political science, has spent over a decade researching the struggles of the Kurdish people in Iraq, and in vivid, lyrical prose, she tells their story through the eyes of Peshawa, a young Muslim Kurd whose family barely survived the bombing and then fled for their lives. Republic of Dreams is a harrowing portrait of Iraqi Kurdistan and its history, as it weathers Hussein’s genocidal campaign against the Kurds, a civil war, the US invasion of Iraq, the Arab Spring, and the sustained neglect of the city of Halabja. Throughout the book, the thread of Peshawa’s story immerses readers in the everyday and extraordinary world of Iraqi Kurds between the late 1980s and 2022, exploring the meaning of home and dislocation in the wake of war and genocide. Based on over a hundred in-depth interviews with Iraqi Kurdish activists, journalists, elected officials, and community organizers, and hundreds of hours of conversations with Peshawa and his family, Republic of Dreams brings to vivid life the story of modern Kurdistan, and the Kurdish national dream to have their own homeland.

Download or read book The Kurds in Iraq Second Edition written by Kerim Yildiz and published by Pluto Press (UK). This book was released on 2007-02-20 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An up-to-date analysis of the problems faced by Iran's Kurdish population

Download or read book After Mosul written by Andrea Plebani and published by Ledizioni. This book was released on 2017-10-16 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After several months of heavy fighting, Mosul has been liberated. However, this will not mark the complete defeat of IS in Iraq, nor will it signal the end of the crisis affecting the country.What will be the fate of the city and of the other liberated territories? Could this victory re-ignite competition among Iraq’s various ethno-sectarian communities? And how could this impact on the Iraqi Kurdistan region? What are the interests and agendas of the main regional and international players?This volume sketches out possible answers through a multi-pronged approach, bringing to light the complexity of the Iraqi scenario and the influence exerted over it by a broad array of internal and external actors.

Download or read book Kurdish Islamists in Iraq from the Muslim Brotherhood to the So Called Islamic State written by Mohammed Shareef and published by King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (KFCRIS). This book was released on 2015-06-01 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The major Islamist groups in the Kurdistan region of Iraq have long been part of the political landscape both at the subnational Kurdistan level and at the Iraqi national level. They gradually emerged in the late 1980s and became more visible and pronounced as a result of the atrocities inflicted on the Kurdish people under Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime. Subsequently the Kurdish Islamist groups became a fixture on the formal Kurdish political stage in 1991 after the popular Kurdish uprising in the spring of that year. The Islamists have so far not become a major determining factor in Kurdish politics, yet they are nonetheless significant and effective. In the mid-1990s they became for a short while a vehicle for protest votes against the two major Kurdish political parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan).

Download or read book Iraq After ISIS written by Jacob Eriksson and published by Palgrave Pivot. This book was released on 2018-12-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the challenges of creating a secure and stable Iraq in the wake of the military campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). Analyzing the impact of the fight against ISIS, the collection provides answers to questions relating to both political and humanitarian considerations in Iraqi post-war recovery. In their analysis, the editors and authors develop policy recommendations for the international and Iraqi political communities. It is essential reading for those interested in politics, international relations, post-war recovery, counter-terrorism, Middle Eastern studies and Iraqi studies scholars.