Download or read book Fighting for Kurdistan written by Feike Fliervoet and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Kurds of Iraq written by Michiel Hegener and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Kurds of Iraq have been making headlines for many decades: in the eighties and early nineties mostly as victims of brutal suppression, in the mid-nineties as victims of each others heavy in-fighting, and since then mainly through their success in achieving a high degree of independence and prosperity within Iraq. The Kurds of Iraq is a book about the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, governed by the highly autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government. The IKR has a 200,000-strong army, its own borders and border patrols, and even its very own stamps. In stark contrast with its volatile past, the IKR, often referred to as The Other Iraq, enjoys a high degree of safety and a booming economy. While most books about the Kurds of Iraq focus solely on military, political and humanitarian issues, this book provides unique insights into their farming methods, the position of women, journalism, telecommunications, life in the villages, leisure and, not least, the magnificent archaeological treasures to be found there.
Download or read book We Came From Fire written by Joey L. and published by powerHouse Books. This book was released on 2019-07-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since March 2015, photographer and author Joey L. has gained unprecedented access to Kurdish guerrilla organizations fighting against ISIS, embedding himself into the chaos of the Iraq and Syrian Civil War on three separate trips. Three components meld to create an extraordinarily brave and important documentation: his medium format portrait photography, a written study of the history of the turmoil that led to the rise of armed Kurdish militias, and intimate journal notes of vivid personal experiences while working as a photographer in the war. The war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria has flooded our daily news with troubling statistics of massacres and mass migrations, yet there are faces and human stories at the heart of the conflict. Joey writes, "From Iraq, one crosses the Tigris River into war-torn Syria, and is catapulted into a worldview crafted by the guerrilla. You are welcomed back by familiar faces wearing a palette of earth tones interrupted by a brightly colored scarf - likely given to them by their mothers. Conversations over cigarettes and tea with much too much sugar often drift to conspiracy theories about the entire world plotting to destroy their cause. Oddly, they begin to make sense. The guerrilla's secretive hierarchy vanishes due to its compartmentalization, and you find yourself among individual Kurds who left their families with the intention of defending their culture and way of life. We had once again entered the world of the Kurdish guerrilla." During his travels, Joey observed ragtag volunteer guerrilla fighters with mysterious links to the outlawed Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) grow into a fully functional army and the US-led coalitions most trusted partner--Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). With little official government support and just light weapons; brothers, sisters, former university students and refugees that once fled from their homes have now taken up arms together against a common enemy--radical jihadist groups that contest the secular social reformations in Kurdistan. Joey's uncanny ability to gain trust and his fearless and open attitude to the unexpected, combined with his genuine love for his subjects and their quest for independence gives We Came from Firea deeply felt sense of humanity.
Download or read book Peshmerga Those Who Face Death written by Simon Valentine and published by . This book was released on 2018-07-07 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Kurds, although a courageous people, have been, until recently, little known beyond the Kurdish mountains. Before the invasion of northern Iraq by ISIS in 2014 few people in the West knew where Kurdistan was as a country, and even fewer had heard of Peshmerga as a fighting force. This has now changed. With the appearance of ISIS Peshmerga was catapulted onto the world stage as a courageous and capable military force, a main contributor to the downfall of the Islamic State.Despite its significance however, in both Kurdish as well as English, very little has been written about the Kurdish army. Countless works have been published, giving detailed accounts of the social, economic, geographic, political, religious and historical background of Kurdistan, but very little on Peshmerga itself. There is no official history of Peshmerga, no standard work informing the general reader of the development and role of the Kurdish army. This book is an attempt to fill that gap. It is important to stress this book is not a history of the Kurdish people. Instead it is an account - the first account ever written - of the Kurdish fighting spirit which first emerged in the ancient world, and later developed during the Kurd's struggles under Islamic rulers and against later regimes, particularly the Ottoman and British Empires. The central theme of the book is the development of Peshmerga from tribal militias; to a mountain based Guerrilla force which could hold its own often against much larger, and better equipped, Iraqi armies sent against it. This partisan force later became the modern "battlefield", western trained, army of today. This theme is inextricably linked with the Kurdish struggle for independence in the face of ongoing western promises of hope then betrayal and disappointment. Particular attention is given to the short-lived Kurdish republic in Mahabad, Iran, in 1946 under Qazi Muhammad and the subsequent famous march to Russia by Mulla Mustafa Barzani and the legendary "500" Peshmerga in 1947; the 14 July revolution in 1958; the Iraqi-Kurdish wars of the 1960's and 70's and the defeat of the Kurds (mainly due to American and Iranian betrayal) following the Algiers Accord 1975. The role of Peshmerga in the Iran-Iraq War, and against Saddam Hussein (particularly the brutal Anfal campaign) are discussed in detail. Attention is also given to the significant role of Peshmerga in the two Gulf Wars and the tragedy of the Kurdish civil war in the mid-1990s. The emergence and development of the KDP under Mustafa Barzani and later his son Masoud Barzani, and the PUK under Jalal Talabani (the two dominant political groups in Kurdistan) is an important thread of this Peshmerga story. In the post-Saddam era the book looks at the fight by Peshmerga against the militant Islamic group Ansar al Islam, which gave the Kurds and Iraqis a foretaste, albeit much smaller, of the devastating brutality of the so called Islamic State. An entire chapter is given to women Peshmerga and the significant contribution made by female fighters to the development of Kurdish military capability.The author lived for three years in Kurdistan and Iraq gathering information for this book. Drawing on direct contact with Peshmerga (he interviewed hundreds of Kurdish soldiers from infantrymen to Generals); living with Peshmerga on the front-line, and knowing many of the leading military commanders and Kurdish politicians (both KDP and PUK), the author (as an experienced journalist and academic writer) considers, not only the tumultuous history of Peshmerga, but also its significance, role and its ongoing needs. As such the author lets Peshmergas speak for themselves and tell their own unique and exciting story.
Download or read book Blood and Belief written by Aliza Marcus and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2009-04 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents the inside story of Kurdish guerrilla movement. This book combines reportage and scholarship to give an account of PKK, the Kurdistan Workers' Party.
Download or read book Revolution in Rojava written by Michael Knapp (Historian) and published by Pluto Press (UK). This book was released on 2016 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Surrounded by enemies including ISIS and hostile Turkish forces, the people in Syria’s Rojava region are carving out one of the most radically progressive societies on the planet. Visitors have been astounded by the success of their project, a communally organised democracy which considers women’s equality indispensable, has a deep-reaching ecological policies, and rejects reactionary nationalist ideology. This form of organization, labeled democratic confederalism, is both fiercely anti-capitalist and boasts a self-defense capacity which is keeping ISIS from their gates. Drawing on their own firsthand experiences of working and fighting in the region, the authors provide the first detailed account of a revolutionary experiment and a new vision of politics and society in the Middle East and beyond"--Back cover.
Download or read book Iraqi Kurdistan written by Gareth R. V. Stansfield and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-08-29 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Iraqi Kurds have enjoyed de facto statehood in the north of Iraq for over a decade but Intra-Kurdish fighting, military incursions by Turkey and Iran and the constant threat posed by Saddam Hussein have plagued this 'democratic experiment'. In this book, Stansfield explores the development of the Kurdish political system since 1991. He examines the difficult and often violent relations between the two dominant powers, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), and their relationship with the Kurdish Regional Government in order to understand the current state of Iraqi Kurdish politics and the operation of the state. This topical in-depth study identifies the main dynamics of Iraqi Kurdish politics, analyzes the record and potential of the 'Kurdish democratic experiment', and identifies the present and future Kurdish leaders.
Download or read book The Structure of Kurdish Society and the Struggle for a Kurdish State written by Hussein Tahiri and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Examining the major Kurdish revolts, this book analyzes the internal factors that led to their defeat, as well as arguing that reliance by Kurdish leadership on foreign powers has had disastrous consequences at crucial points in Kurdish history."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book The Kurdish Spring written by David L. Phillips and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kurds are the largest stateless people in the world. An estimated thirty-two million Kurds live in "Kurdistan," which includes parts of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran today's "hot spots" in the Middle East. The Kurdish Spring explores the subjugation of Kurds by Arab, Ottoman, and Persian powers for almost a century, and explains why Kurds are now evolving from a victimized people to a coherent political community.David L. Phillips describes Kurdish rebellions and arbitrary divisions in the last century, chronicling the nadir of Kurdish experience in the 1980s. He discusses draconian measures implemented by Iraq, including use of chemical weapons, Turkey's restrictions on political and cultural rights, denial of citizenship and punishment for expressing Kurdish identity in Syria, and repressive rule in Iran.Phillips forecasts the collapse and fragmentation of Iraq. He argues that US strategic and security interests are advanced through cooperation with Kurds, as a bulwark against ISIS and Islamic extremism. This work will encourage the public to look critically at the post-colonial period, recognizing the injustice and impracticality of states that were created by Great Powers, and offering a new perspective on sovereignty and statehood.
Download or read book Fighting ISIS written by Tim Locks and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2016 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In February 2015, Tim Locks headed to Kurdistan to fight ISIS. After watching images of the Yazidi people being slaughtered, he couldn't sit back and do nothing. Having worked as a prison officer and a bouncer, he knew how to handle himself - and had a huge protective streak. He sold his house to raise money, put himself through arms training and bought his equipment on eBay. In this gripping book he reveals what it is like to fight alongside the Kurds as well as British and American ex-military. He has cleared the enemy from occupied villages, come under mortar and small-arms fire, and witnessed the horrific atrocities committed by ISIS. He also describes how WiFi on the front line allows today's soldiers to communicate, how they always find time for selfies, even when under attack, and how the Kurds are so used to this way of life they stop mid-firefight to have a cup of chai and play Candy Crush while manning the mortars. As cultures clash, and the bullets start flying, Tim shares his adventures with honesty and black humour.
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 Long Shot written by Azad Cudi and published by Atlantic Monthly Press. This book was released on 2019-02-12 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Kurdish journalist who volunteered as a sniper in the fight against ISIS reveals his story in a “gripping memoir . . . elegantly told” (Publishers Weekly). In 2002, at age nineteen, Azad was conscripted into Iran’s army and forced to fight his own people. Refusing to go to war against his fellow Kurds, he deserted and smuggled himself to the United Kingdom, where he was granted asylum, became a citizen, and learned English. But in 2014, having returned to the Middle East as a social worker in the wake of the Syrian civil war, Azad found he would have to pick up a weapon once again. After twenty-one days of intensive training as a sniper, Azad became one of seventeen volunteer marksmen deployed by the Kurdish army when ISIS besieged the city of Kobani in Rojava, the newly autonomous region of the Kurds. Here, he tells the inside story of the Kurdish forces’ bloody street battles against the Islamic State. Vastly outnumbered, the Kurds would have to kill the jihadis one by one, and Azad takes us on a harrowing journey to reveal the sniper unit’s essential role in ISIS’s eventual defeat. Weaving the brutal events of war with personal and political reflection, he meditates on the incalculable price of victory—the permanent effects of war on the body and mind; the devastating death of six of his closest comrades; the loss of hundreds of volunteers in battle. But as Azad explains, these sacrifices saved not only a city but a people and their land. “A propulsive memoir that captures the grim reality of small-scale conflict and reveals the fragmented politics of the Middle East today” (Kirkus Reviews), Long Shot tells how, against all odds, a few thousand men and women achieved the impossible and kept their dream of freedom alive.
Download or read book The CIA War in Kurdistan written by Sam Faddis and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A valuable history [and] a stark warning to Washington policy and strategy makers.” —James Stejskal, former US Army Special Forces and CIA officer In 2002, Sam Faddis was named to head a CIA team that would enter Iraq to facilitate the deployment of follow-on conventional military forces numbering over 40,000 American soldiers. This force, built around the 4th Infantry Division, would, in partnership with Kurdish forces and with the assistance of Turkey, engage Saddam’s army in the North as part of a coming invasion. Faddis expected to be on the ground in Iraq within weeks, the entire campaign likely to be over by summer. Over the course of the next year, virtually every aspect of that plan for the conduct of the war in northern Iraq fell apart. The 4th Infantry Division never arrived, nor did any other conventional forces in substantial number. The Turks not only refused to provide support, they worked overtime to prevent the United States from achieving success. And an Arab army that was to assist US forces fell apart before it ever made it to the field. Alone, hopelessly outnumbered, short on supplies, and threatened by Iraqi assassination teams and Islamic extremists, Faddis’s team, working with Kurdish peshmerga, miraculously paved the way for a brilliant and largely bloodless victory in the North and the fall of Saddam’s Iraq. That victory, handed over to Washington and the Department of Defense on a silver platter, was then squandered. The decisions that followed would lead to catastrophic consequences that continue to this day. This is the story of the brave and effective team of men and women who overcame massive odds to help end the nightmare of Saddam’s rule. It is also the story of how incompetence, bureaucracy, and ignorance threw that success away and condemned Iraq and the surrounding region to chaos
Download or read book THE DAUGHTERS OF KOBANI written by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon and published by Swift Press. This book was released on 2021-05-13 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The extraordinary story of the women who took on the Islamic State and won In 2014, northeastern Syria might have been the last place you would expect to find a revolution centered on women's rights. But that year, an all-female militia faced off against ISIS in a little town few had ever heard of: Kobani. By then, the Islamic State had swept across vast swathes of the country, taking town after town and spreading terror as the civil war burned all around it. From that unlikely showdown in Kobani emerged a fighting force that would wage war against ISIS across northern Syria alongside the United States. In the process, these women would spread their own political vision, determined to make women's equality a reality by fighting - house by house, street by street, city by city - the men who bought and sold women. Based on years of on-the-ground reporting, The Daughters of Kobani is the unforgettable story of the women of the Kurdish militia that improbably became part of the world's best hope for stopping ISIS in Syria. Drawing from hundreds of hours of interviews, bestselling author Gayle Tzemach Lemmon introduces us to the women fighting on the front lines, determined to not only extinguish the terror of ISIS but also prove that women could lead in war and must enjoy equal rights come the peace. Rigorously reported and powerfully told, The Daughters of Kobani shines a light on a group of women intent on not only defeating the Islamic State on the battlefield but also changing women's lives in their corner of the Middle East and beyond.
Download or read book Out of Nowhere written by Michael M. Gunter and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the emergence of Syrian Kurds, who became game-changers in the Syrian civil war and potentially in Kurdish areas of other countries as well.
Download or read book EU Turkey and Counter Terrorism written by Ethem Ilbiz and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2021-04-30 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This perceptive analysis examines the effect of the EU on Turkish counter-terrorism polices towards the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Islamic State (ISIL), and aims to investigate the extent to which the EU has developed the capacity to play a role in Turkish counter-terrorism policy through promoting democratisation.
Download or read book Shatter the Nations written by Mike Giglio and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unflinching dispatches of an embedded war reporter covering ISIS and the unlikely alliance of forces who came together to defeat it. The battle to defeat ISIS was an unremittingly brutal and dystopian struggle, a multi-sided war of gritty local commandos and militias. Mike Giglio takes readers to the heart of this shifting, uncertain conflict, capturing the essence of a modern war. At its peak, ISIS controlled a self-styled "caliphate" the size of Great Britain, with a population cast into servitude that numbered in the millions. Its territory spread across Iraq and Syria as its influence stretched throughout the wider world. Giglio tells the story of the rise of the caliphate and the ramshackle coalition--aided by secretive Western troops and American airstrikes--that was assembled to break it down village by village, district by district. The story moves from the smugglers, traffickers, and jihadis working on the ISIS side to the victims of its zealous persecution and the local soldiers who died by the thousands to defeat it. Amid the battlefield drama, culminating in a climactic showdown in Mosul, is a dazzlingly human portrait of the destructive power of extremism, and of the tenacity and astonishing courage required to defeat it.
