The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has released an interesting map providing a look at the progress of the Iraqi operation against forces of the separatist Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in the disputed areas in northern Iraq in the period between October 16 and October 29.
The content of this Washington-based think tank is often used by mainstream media to provide their “analytical” coverage of the conflicts in Syria and Iraq.
The map below provides an interesting look at the mainstream agenda in the coverage of the ongoing standoff between the Iraqi Federal Government and the KRG.
The map description reads:
Iraqi forces & Iran’s proxies prepare to seize Kurdish border crossings
Iraq and Iran rejected a Kurdish ceasefire offer and launched a new phase of their military campaign against Iraqi Kurdistan. Iraqi forces and Iran’s proxies are prepared for new military operations to seize Iraqi Kurdistan’s border crossings if Kurdish forces do not relinquish them. Iranian proxy leaders are coordinating with Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) commanders and may even direct the military operation, if it occurs. It will be gin at the Fishkhabur crossing between Iraqi Kurdistan and Syria, where Iran’s proxies including the Badr Organization and Asa’ib Ahl al Haq are deployed. Negotiations are underway after Prime Minister abadi set a deadline for the handover of the crossings on October 28th, but there has been no sign of a Kurdish withdrawal. Kurdistan Regional Government President Masoud Barzani announced he will not seek an extension of his term past November 1st in a letter to the Kurdish Parliament on October 29th.
The key takeaways from the map:
- Big bad Iranias are leading the military opearation against the KRG;
- Iraqi government forces may be if are not already subordinated to Iran in their “agression” against the KRG [Just look at the foreword about “a Kurdish ceasefire offer”];
- There are some “Kurdish border crossings” despite the fact that they are formally a part of Iraq, even according to the US State Department itself, which clearly rejected the KRG independence referendum;
- The map provides a very detailed look at all forces of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units involved in the operation, but avoids doing so in case of the Iraqi Army, the Federal Police, the Counter-Terrorism Service etc. This creates an impression that a major part of the forces involved in the operation was from the PMU while indeed other forces played a comparable or even bigger role.
Summing up the points above, Iran is guilty in the ongoing tensions in northern Iraq. Doesn’t they worry that this look at least a bit suspicious?
Click to see the full-size map
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/00cb50b9139c66ada2be4c7d7f2478aa91c14cc5d60504698b964afb0e8737a1.jpg
The “evil” Jew strikes again. Causing fear and chaos in a region where it is outnumbered at least 20 to 1. (Sarcasm for those who cant tell)
Agent of zion.
Ever had the idea the US is working for Israel?
Did anyone notice a change in the behaviour of some pro-Zionist and pro-Kurdish commenters here?
They are all now cursing Masoud Barzani and ask for his persecution, but a while ago he was a true hero and patriot for them! It’s a sign folk, that Barzani’s usefulness came to an end and trolls’ supervisors gave them another piece of instructions to bash Barzani AND his opposition at the same time.
They’ll say I’m delusional, but WE know better, don’t we? Trolls are so predictable! :)
What will they expected with the outcome of this ? Public sway to rally up US military against ISF and PMU on the basis it was subordinated or controlled by Iran ? The true question is can they make another confrontation with Iraq without further isolating their cause ?
Well, it was obvious that his ‘heroic referendum’ wasn’t producing anything more productive then the Catalan one. Only the contrary. And the arse kicking the Peshmerga got and are still getting at the hand of the Iraqi army and PMU demanded a scapegoat. That usually means they will either rally around the leader, or turn against him. Depending on how skillfully the leader can reframe the defeats. It would appear that Barzani was not that skillful, henceforth the tide turned against him.
I’m not talking about Iraqi Kurds and the political situation in KAR, I’m talking about the people who used to comment here and call Barzani as some kind of a hero but now call him a traitor, corrupt and ask for his persecution, while at the same time say the same things about his political opponents who said the referendum is not right and they shouldn’t provoke Iraq and it’s neighbours.
In short, I’m talking about the trolls who changed colour.
I was talking about them as well. Like I said, when he pulled a referendum these people were also praising him. Now that the Peshmerga are getting their arses kicked he is suddenly a corrupt dictator in their eyes. A sacrificial scapegoat has to be found. Be it for the people that are actually losing, or their supporters online.
I have noticed that too..
Bureaucratic agency group-think 101: Colleagues, how do we keep western public sympathy for an expansionist and divisive KRG project, despite the corrupt referendum farce and the Pershmerg’a aggressive attempts to subdue and colonize Arab and Assyrian towns outside of KRG territory – particularly the Assyrian Nineveh Plain? Hmm, well colleagues, how about we throw Barzani to the wind – imply all the se problems in KRG were entirely related to him – and then put a new face to our project and try all over again, viola!
Yeah, I read an “article” about Catalans, remarkable incorrect, and historical hogwash presented to people whom dont know where Africa is, you know, somewhere down south, by the Mexican border, somewhere, and ends it with another remarkable conclusion, the Catalans are an scam, along with the Russia shoot gun wedding in Crimea. Its all Putins fault, He even eats peoples home work, according to the wankees, the western never ever fake news media world, hehe, you cant beat that, other then been an Wankee. Whom is so thoroughly high pressurized water, brain washed and then Teflon coated inside, by medication, so that nothing sticks and then eventually, by common sense, must not be compared to common core, everything goes, apart from if it happened yesterday, you know, medication etc, waiving dicks everywhere, yup, our morale bastion is shining isnt it.
And then the Iranians, whom now have taken the rod from the Russians in the MSM laps about whom is the bogeyman this time, yeah, now Iranians are crawling everywhere, behind wall papers, in the chimneys, looking up from the Jon, huh, images even my brain cell refuse to create, its to hideous, simply, and this maggots runs the world. Yeah, what could possibly go wrong, when the inmates of the open free range asylum UssA is waving their d… sorry, in front of the NKs.
How to deal with it, well, how do you stop an 800 pound GODzilla (Guns, Oil and Drugs) high in steroids and booze, like an person snapping out completely, from PCB, angel dust, you need an cannon to stop them, no words will ever do anything, no fall is to high, they can fight even when half of their body is pulverize, its unbelievable what an human body can endure, just when the mindset is so focused that everything else, simply disappears. They are insane, period, been that for century’s, war is an racket. I hope the Arabs have learn their lesson well, because they will turn on you, because of ISISrael.
peace
This is the best post i read today ?
From what I can see, Iran is actually doing nothing. LOL
T The US Institute for the Study of War is part of the Pentagon. It explains it all. It is one of the many Western institutions who regarding the Middle East have been telling stories full of lies. That’s what they are paid to do. It shows however you can’t trust the US, not for a penny.
“WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION”
The pipeline is cut The Iraqis reached the Turkish border Iraq Kurdistan is isolated from rojava Splendid job Iraq
This is actually done to contain another flow of mercenaries passing through the KRG ‘unopposed’ to wreak havoc in another region in Iraq.
it is still a splendid job for Iraq nontheless
Real kick in the nuts job. Fantastic.
It would also allow SAA to place their own crossing .
11
It is also a cut off of weapons supply to SDF & proxies as the weapon stores captured show who is suppling them.
‘The Institute for the Study of War (ISW)’
Usual suspect, a Neo-Con DC think tank, would be better named:
The Institute for the Manufacturing of War (IMW)
ISW is totally correct here. All these groups are Iranian-proxies. Let’s see if they will be as evil as the Wahhabis that they are fighting against.
And Kurdish group is US/Israel proxy ?
Kurds are friends with Israel and the West because birds of the same flock fly together.
https://i0.wp.com/worldpeace365.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/greater-israel-52.png
The ODED YINON PLAN to break up the Arab countries. Document was written in 1982
1- The Arab world is too fractured to pose a threat to the Jews in Palestine The Arab Moslem world, therefore, is not the major strategic problem which we shall face in the Eighties, despite the fact that it carries the main threat against Israel, due to its growing military might. This world, with its ethnic minorities, its factions and internal crises, which is astonishingly self-destructive, as we can see in Lebanon, in non-Arab Iran and now also in Syria, is unable to deal successfully with its fundamental problems and does not therefore constitute a real threat against the State of Israel in the long run, but only in the short run where its immediate military power has great import. In the long run, this world will be unable to exist within its present framework in the areas around us without having to go through genuine revolutionary changes.
2- The Arab world is made up of ethnic groups hostile to one another The Moslem Arab World is built like a temporary house of cards put together by foreigners (France and Britain in the Nineteen Twenties), without the wishes and desires of the inhabitants having been taken into account. It was arbitrarily divided into 19 states, all made of combinations of minorities and ethnic groups which are hostile to one another, so that every Arab Moslem state nowadays faces ethnic social destruction from within, and in some a civil war is already raging.
3- Algeria, Morocco,Tunisia are made up of Arabs and non-Arab Berbers Apart from Egypt, all the Maghreb states are made up of a mixture of Arabs and non-Arab Berbers. In Algeria there is already a civil war raging in the Kabile mountains between the two nations in the country. Morocco and Algeria are at war with each other over Spanish Sahara, in addition to the internal struggle in each of them. Militant Islam endangers the integrity of Tunisia and Qaddafi organizes wars which are destructive from the Arab point of view, from a country which is sparsely populated and which cannot become a powerful nation. That is why he has been attempting unifications in the past with states that are more genuine, like Egypt and Syria.
4- Sudan is made up of four groups hostile to one another Sudan, the most torn apart state in the Arab Moslem world today is built upon four groups hostile to each other, an Arab Moslem Sunni minority which rules over a majority of non-Arab Africans, Pagans, and Christians.
5- Egypt: Christian minority may want a state of their own In Egypt there is a Sunni Moslem majority facing a large minority of Christians which is dominant in upper Egypt: some 7 million of them, so that even Sadat, in his speech on May 8, expressed the fear that they will want a state of their own, something like a “second” Christian Lebanon in Egypt.
6- Syria: Shia minority ruling over majority Sunni Syria is fundamentally no different from Lebanon except in the strong military regime which rules it. But the real civil war taking place nowadays between the Sunni majority and the Shi’ite Alawi ruling minority (a mere 12% of the population) testifies to the severity of the domestic trouble.
7- Iraq: Sunni minority ruling over Shia majority – Kurdish minority will make it easy to break it up Iraq is, once again, no different in essence from its neighbors, although its majority is Shi’ite and the ruling minority Sunni. Sixty-five percent of the population has no say in politics, in which an elite of 20 percent holds the power. In addition there is a large Kurdish minority in the north, and if it weren’t for the strength of the ruling regime, the army and the oil revenues, Iraq’s future state would be no different than that of Lebanon in the past or of Syria today. The seeds of inner conflict and civil war are apparent today already, especially after the rise of Khomeini to power in Iran, a leader whom the Shi’ites in Iraq view as their natural leader.
8- Bahrain, UAE, Oman: Sunni minority rules over Shia majority, Kuwait: 75% foreign, Saudi Arabia: 50% foreign All the Gulf principalities and Saudi Arabia are built upon a delicate house of sand in which there is only oil. In Kuwait, the Kuwaitis constitute only a quarter of the population. In Bahrain, the Shi’ites are the majority but are deprived of power. In the UAE, Shi’ites are once again the majority but the Sunnis are in power. The same is true of Oman and North Yemen. Even in the Marxist South Yemen there is a sizable Shi’ite minority. In Saudi Arabia half the population is foreign, Egyptian and Yemenite, but a Saudi minority holds power.
9- Jordan: Palestinian majority ruled by Bedouin minority Jordan is in reality Palestinian, ruled by a Trans-Jordanian Bedouin minority, but most of the army and certainly the bureaucracy is now Palestinian. As a matter of fact Amman is as Palestinian as Nablus.
10- Syrian army is Sunni, commander Shia; Iraqi army is Shia ruled by Sunni All of these countries have powerful armies, relatively speaking. But there is a problem there too. The Syrian army today is mostly Sunni with an Alawi officer corps, the Iraqi army Shi’ite with Sunni commanders. This has great significance in the long run, and that is why it will not be possible to retain the loyalty of the army for a long time except where it comes to the only common denominator: The hostility towards Israel, and today even that is insufficient.
11- Iran is composed of Sunni, Shia Alawis, Sunni Kurds, it faces Ethnic and religious tension, Half of Iran’s population is comprised of a Persian speaking group and the other half of an ethnically Turkish group. Turkey’s population comprises a Turkish Sunni Moslem majority, some 50%, and two large minorities, 12 million Shi’ite Alawis and 6 million Sunni Kurds.
12- Afghanistan: 33% Shia, 67% Sunni In Afghanistan there are 5 million Shi’ites who constitute one third of the population.
13- Pakistan: 15 million Shia (1982 figures) In Sunni Pakistan there are 15 million Shi’ites who endanger the existence of that state.
14- The Muslim world made up of ethnic minorities is like a house of cards This national ethnic minority picture extending from Morocco to India and from Somalia to Turkey points to the absence of stability and a rapid degeneration in the entire region. When this picture is added to the economic one, we see how the entire region is built like a house of cards, unable to withstand its severe problems.
15- Jews should have given Jordan to Palestinians and removed them from Palestine We could have saved ourselves all the bitter and dangerous conflict since then if we had given Jordan to the Palestinians who live west of the Jordan river. By doing that we would have neutralized the Palestinian problem which we nowadays face, and to which we have found solutions that are really no solutions at all, such as territorial compromise or autonomy which amount, in fact, to the same thing. Today, we suddenly face immense opportunities for transforming the situation thoroughly and this we must do in the coming decade, otherwise we shall not survive as a state.
16- Jews should never have lost the Sinai peninsula The loss of the Suez Canal oil fields, of the immense potential of the oil, gas and other natural resources in the Sinai peninsula which is geomorphologically identical to the rich oil-producing countries in the region, will result in an energy drain in the near future and will destroy our domestic economy: one quarter of our present GNP as well as one third of the budget is used for the purchase of oil. The search for raw materials in the Negev and on the coast will not, in the near future, serve to alter that state of affairs. (Regaining) the Sinai peninsula with its present and potential resources is therefore a political priority which is obstructed by the Camp David and the peace agreements. The fault for that lies of course with the present Israeli government and the governments which paved the road to the policy of territorial compromise, the Alignment governments since 1967.
17- Hoping for Egypt to give Israel the excuse to start a war and take back Sinai. Israel has two major routes through which to realize this purpose, one direct and the other indirect. The direct option is the less realistic one because of the nature of the regime and government in Israel as well as the wisdom of Sadat who obtained our withdrawal from Sinai, which was, next to the war of 1973, his major achievement since he took power. Israel will not unilaterally break the treaty, neither today, nor in 1982, unless it is very hard pressed economically and politically and Egypt provides Israel with the excuse to take the Sinai back into our hands for the fourth time in our short history. What is left therefore, is the indirect option. The economic situation in Egypt, the nature of the regime and its pan-Arab policy, will bring about a situation after April 1982 in which Israel will be forced to act directly or indirectly in order to regain control over Sinai as a strategic, economic and energy reserve for the long run. Egypt does not constitute a military strategic problem due to its internal conflicts and it could be driven back to the post 1967 war situation in no more than one day.
18- How to break up Egypt Breaking Egypt down territorially into distinct geographical regions is the political aim of Israel in the Nineteen Eighties on its Western front. Egypt is divided and torn apart into many foci of authority. If Egypt falls apart, countries like Libya, Sudan or even the more distant states will not continue to exist in their present form and will join the downfall and dissolution of Egypt. The vision of a Christian Coptic State in Upper Egypt alongside a number of weak states with very localized power and without a centralized government as to date, is the key to a historical development which was only set back by the peace agreement but which seems inevitable in the long run.
19- Break up Lebanon into five provinces Lebanon’s total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precendent for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula and is already following that track.
20- How to break up Syria and Iraq into ethnic and religious components The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unqiue areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target. Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shi’ite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan, and certainly in the Hauran and in northern Jordan. This state of affairs will be the guarantee for peace and security in the area in the long run, and that aim is already within our reach today.
21- How to break up Iraq along ethnic/religious lines Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel’s targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. An Iraqi-Iranian war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before it is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us. Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon. In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shi’ite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north. It is possible that the present Iranian-Iraqi confrontation will deepen this polarization.
22- How to break up Saudi Arabia The entire Arabian peninsula is a natural candidate for dissolution due to internal and external pressures, and the matter is inevitable especially in Saudi Arabia. Regardless of whether its economic might based on oil remains intact or whether it is diminished in the long run, the internal rifts and breakdowns are a clear and natural development in light of the present political structure.
23- Transfer power in Jordan from the King to Palestinians Jordan constitutes an immediate strategic target in the short run but not in the long run, for it does not constitute a real threat in the long run after its dissolution, the termination of the lengthy rule of King Hussein and the transfer of power to the Palestinians in the short run. There is no chance that Jordan will continue to exist in its present structure for a long time, and Israel’s policy, both in war and in peace, ought to be directed at the liquidation of Jordan under the present regime and the transfer of power to the Palestinian majority.
24- Change the regime in Jordan and expel Palestinians from Palestine to Jordan Changing the regime east of the river will also cause the termination of the problem of the territories densely populated with Arabs west of the Jordan. Whether in war or under conditions of peace, emigration from the territories and economic demographic freeze in them, are the guarantees for the coming change on both banks of the river, and we ought to be active in order to accelerate this process in the nearest future.
25- Jews must remove all Palestinians and send them to Jordan The autonomy plan ought also to be rejected, as well as any compromise or division of the territories for, given the plans of the PLO and those of the Israeli Arabs themselves, the Shefa’amr plan of September 1980, it is not possible to go on living in this country in the present situation without separating the two nations, the Arabs to Jordan and the Jews to the areas west of the river.
26- Palestinians must understand that Jews must rule over all Palestine-and they need to move to Jordan Genuine coexistence and peace will reign over the land only when the Arabs understand that without Jewish rule between the Jordan and the sea they will have neither existence nor security. A nation of their own and security will be theirs only in Jordan.
27- Palestinians consider all of Palestine stolen irrespective of 1948 or 1967 and Jews consider all of Palestine theirs – even beyond Jordan River Within Israel the distinction between the areas of ’67 and the territories beyond them, those of ’48, has always been meaningless for Arabs and nowadays no longer has any significance for us. The problem should be seen in its entirety without any divisions as of ’67. It should be clear, under any future political situation or military constellation, that the solution of the problem of the indigenous Arabs will come only when they recognize the existence of Israel in secure borders up to the Jordan river and beyond it, as our existential need in this difficult epoch, the nuclear epoch which we shall soon enter.
28- The West Bank must be populated with Jews or else Jews will be defeated like crusaders. Dispersal of the population is therefore a domestic strategic aim of the highest order; otherwise, we shall cease to exist within any borders. Judea, Samaria and the Galilee are our sole guarantee for national existence, and if we do not become the majority in the mountain areas, we shall not rule in the country and we shall be like the Crusaders, who lost this country which was not theirs anyhow, and in which they were foreigners to begin with. Rebalancing the country demographically, strategically and economically is the highest and most central aim today. Taking hold of the mountain watershed from Beersheba to the Upper Galilee is the national aim generated by the major strategic consideration which is settling the mountainous part of the country that is empty of Jews today.
29- No force can remove the Jews from Palestine Our existence in this country itself is certain, and there is no force that could remove us from here either forcefully or by treachery (Sadat’s method). Despite the difficulties of the mistaken “peace” policy and the problem of the Israeli Arabs and those of the territories, we can effectively deal with these problems in the foreseeable future.
It is Arab land not free riders who doesn’t appreciate free accommodation and start sell out landlords to USA hypocrisy. NO more free ride Kurds.Go and sell your self to USA for gay,prostitution and homosexualism.