Islamic

Iraq demands Kirkuk government be divided ethnically

In a brash demand from the Iraqi government, they have ordered the political parties and governing officials in Kirkuk to restructure all government posts based on ethnicity in one month’s time. The division of personnel would be a three-part split (32%) of Arabs, Turkmens and Kurds, with the remaining 4% left to Christian minorities. The […]

Kurdish PM refuses to send Peshmerga to defend Afrin

In a recent interview, Kurdish prime minister of the KDP (Kurdish Diplomatic Party) and former president Masoud Barzani said, “The deployment of the Peshmerga to help their fellow Kurds in Afrin against Turkey’s military operation will not help solve the problem.” The conflict in Afrin has stirred up a lot of sympathy and support for […]

Turkey deploys military forces to Syrian border

Reports are coming through that a convoy of five tanks and multiple military vehicles have been dispatched to Turkey’s southern border with Rojava, northern Syria. This move by Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is presumably in response to the Kurds neglecting to heed his earlier threats of military response if they did not withdraw from the […]

Iraq declares it has no knowledge of missing Peshmerga

A member of the Iraqi parliament has stated that it does not known the whereabouts of the many Peshmerga soldiers who have disappeared during the Islamic State conflict and that they are not being held in Iraqi prisons. Shakhawan Abdullah, a member of the Iraqi parliament’s council for security and defense, has denied accusations that […]

US/SDF lead Kurdish border guard receives backlash

As we see the Islamic State‘s caliphate collapsing in the Middle East, the US-led coalition is planning to improve border security in northern Syria. The plan as of now is to equip the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) for this role, a Kurdish-led umbrella force for an alliance of sub groups in the region. Because the […]

Attack on prison transfer thwarted by Kurdish counter-terror unit

An attack on a prisoner transferring transport occurred in Chamchamal, Kurdistan Monday night (1/15/2018) around 0230. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan’s (PUK) counter-terror unit responded and swiftly neutralized the attempted hijackers. As a result, three of the gunmen were injured and the 4th killed by direct fire. This was a coordinated and well-planned attack; this […]

ISIS groups arrested in Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan

Recently two cells of Islamic State operatives were arrested in Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan. While both groups had direct ties to the Islamic state, one consisted of all females and was tasked with social media outreach along with propaganda. The other was an all male group dedicated to direct action based terror attacks to be carried out in […]

American mercs hold off ISIS attack in Kirkuk

I had been in Kurdistan, northern Iraq, for about a whole two weeks and was probably as “green” as I could possibly be. The region was still engaged in a heated conflict with IS and attacks of all kinds were occurring daily. I had just arrived at the Peshmerga‘s 9th Brigade, one of the only […]

Iraqi para military forces begin massive anti ISIS operation

A major military operation has begun by the Iraqi government to hunt down and finish off the last remnants of the Islamic State in the Kirkuk region. Elements of air force and Iraqi armored divisions were deployed alongside Iranian-funded para military Hashd Al-Shabi units. The PMF (Popular Mobilization Forces) were named specifically in the tasking […]

Disinformation campaign in full effect for Iraqi Kurdistan

Since the start of Iraq and its proxies occupation of Kirkuk, a city in southern Kurdistan or northern Iraq depending how you look at it, there has been an increasing number of falsified anti-Kurdish sentiments. It’s happening in the form of forged documents, false reports often based on rumors and sensationalism from local media outlets. […]

FBI Agent fears American sleeper terrorist in the wind

Posing as a fellow jihadist, undercover FBI agent Tamer Elnoury was in the midst of foiling a potentially deadly terrorist attack in Canada when his day went straight downhill. He was on a road trip with wanna-be terrorist Chiheb Esseghaier from Montreal to Toronto, where the two were supposed to meet with another like-minded radical, […]

‘We Misled You’: How the Saudis are coming clean on funding terrorism

Across the Islamic-majority countries there has been an ongoing struggle between modernization and Islamism. Riyadh views modernization as the vehicle through which the Saudi state, at long last, can confront and defeat extremism, foster a dynamic private sector and master the looming economic challenges. The Saudi program includes:

New limits on the ability of the religious police to arrest dissidents.
Purges of extremists from the government and greater efforts to monitor their influence in security institutions.
The appointment of new religious leaders to counter Islamic extremism on theological grounds.
The transformation of the world Muslim League—a key Saudi arm for supporting Islamic movements abroad—by the appointment of a new leader and a decision to stop supporting Islamist madrassas abroad.