forgive me if this is a dumb question, ive seen a lot of mentions for the PKK as another terrorist group within Turkey. is that group the same as the Kurds were backing vs ISIS?
The answer is, kinda. The group America officially backs in Syria is the YPG. Turkey makes little to no distinction between the PKK and YPG. Certainly there is some over lap, but they are not the same group. The Peshmerga in Iraq have no affiliation to the YPG as far as I know.
Most of the Kurds fighting in Syria (YPG) are closely aligned with the PKK. The Iraqi Kurds have little to no connection.
are they trying to carve out a sovereign state for all Kurds? or would the YPG/PKK/Pershmerga each have their own territory, ideally?
Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran would never allow that. Many of these Kurdish groups are also Marxist/Leninist groups so the US probably wouldn't be super keen on setting them up long term either. There's different competing factions within "Kurdistan" as well. Which is kind of true for the whole region; it's been tribal and familial since forever. Nationalism doesn't really apply and the only time it really did was under various Caliphates (the last being the Ottomans). This is semi ironic in both cases because one of the goals of the founding of Islam in the first place was to unite the tribes into a socialist-ish community rather than a number of competing factions under a dictator.
Ideally they would. Its one of the reason Turkey is attacking the shit out of them and has been since they started marching through Syria. Turkey has been backing ISIS because they don't want the Kurds to unite all of the cantons in Syria and Iraq.
The Assad regime(if it wins) will likely have to offer the Kurds in Syria at the very least some autonomy. There's been a tenuous peace between the two groups in northwestern Syria(Hasakah), there were a few clashes a few months back but both sides are coexisting for now. I assume they went with a large convoy out of desperation and prayed they wouldn't get lit up, they stopped using large convoys in Iraq a while ago because of airstrikes.
TOW strike on SAA S23 Gvozdika in Aleppo province rebels pushed back SAA forces who were trying to encircle Aleppo city Qalaat Al Mudiq @QalaatAlMudiq Big Rebel counter-attack underway in N. #Aleppo, not limited to #Mallah. Report of massive SVBIED detonated in #Handarat. #JaF in action. Qalaat Al Mudiq @QalaatAlMudiq @QalaatAlMudiq Confirmed by pro-Regime sources. Shock troops sent by Jaish Al-Fateh were decise in final push to expel pro-Regime forces.
these shots of Ataturk basically back to normal on CNN are pretty damn trippy ... and at this vid they're playing of the convoy strike. lit those fuckers up ...
Turkey paying a price for Erdoğan's wilful blindness to Isis threat https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/29/turkey-pays-price-erdogan-blindness-to-isis-threat Spoiler Turkish officials, led by the prime minister, Binali Yildirim, have initially blamed the Istanbul airport attack on Islamic State, and it is true that this latest murderous outrage closely resembles last October’s Isis bombing of a peace rally in Ankara that killed 103 people, the deadliest such attack in modern Turkish history. Assuming the official claim turns out to be accurate, it once again raises the murky question of Turkish government attitudes towards the Isis militants who control or are contesting large swaths of territory adjacent to Turkey’s southern border with Syria and Iraq and are said to maintain networks of supporters inside Turkey. The basic problem is that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s president, believes indigenous Kurds in those areas and in south-east Turkey pose a bigger threat than does Isis. This perceived ambivalence has led to numerous accusations of tacit Turkish support for or, worse still, complicity in Isis’s activities since the group swept to prominence in 2014 – all flatly denied by Erdoğan and his ministers. The mostly unproven accusations, listed in a research paper published by New York’s Columbia University, include claims that predominantly Sunni Muslim Turkey has covertly supplied, trained, financed and assisted the recruitment of Isis’s Sunni fighters in their battles with the Kurds, with Iraq’s Shia-led government, and with the Syrian government, which Turkey opposes. Some of the accusations, such as the government’s direct arming of Isis, seem far-fetched. But other claims, including suggestions that Turkish middlemen were involved in lucrative Isis oil smuggling from Iraq to Turkey, are widely believed. Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, leader of the main Turkish opposition Republican People’s party (CHP), produced documents and transcripts in 2014 purporting to show that Turkey supplied weapons to terror groups inside Syria. It was suggested the arms went to ethnic Turkmen fighters opposed to Syria’s leader, Bashar al-Assad, not Isis. Erdoğan’s government has also been accused of supporting – by what means is unclear – an al-Qaida-affiliated Syrian rebel force, Jabhat al-Nusra, which is said to be backed by Turkey’s ally Saudi Arabia but which is proscribed as a terrorist outfit by the US and Britain, also Ankara’s allies. When in May 2015 the Cumhuriyet daily published material and footage alleging that Turkish MIT intelligence agents had tried to smuggle arms into Syria and been intercepted by border guards, the paper’s editor, Can Dündar, was arrested and charged with security offences and the border guards were dismissed. Such official pressure tactics have inhibited subsequent independent reporting. Advertisement Specific allegations aside, Erdoğan is accused by his opponents of indirectly helping Isis by thwarting, and refusing to support, efforts by Kurdish militias and their western backers to combat the jihadis in Syria and Iraq. Erdoğan has repeatedly dismissed the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union party (PYD) and the Iraqi peshmerga as being no better than terrorists themselves, in league with Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK). Erdoğan renewed the Turkish state’s long-running conflict with the PKK last summer after his ruling Justice and Development party unexpectedly lost its parliamentary majority, largely due to the electoral success of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic party (HDP). He has since sought effectively to ban most HDP MPs from parliament while seeking to extend his presidential powers. Large-scale crackdowns and curfews in Kurdish towns in the south-east have led to numerous deaths on both sides and mass civilian displacement. The violence provoked a spate of terrorist attacks on soft targets in Istanbul and Ankara by a militant PKK offshoot known as the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK). The government says the TAK outrages prove the truth of its contention that the PKK is a purely terrorist organisation lacking legitimate cause that must be mercilessly extirpated. In recent months, conforming to this preferred narrative, attacks launched by Isis have been officially blamed, initially at least, on the Kurds, thereby confusing the overall picture and complicating the counter-terrorism response to Isis. Advertisement Incontrovertible evidence has now emerged that Isis operatives planned the Ankara attack last October. A total of 36 suspects are facing a total of up to 11,750 years in jail, according to the Ankara public prosecutor. It seems probable that Tuesday evening’s attack in Istanbul was Isis’s response to a recent wave of arrests and artillery bombardments targeting the group inside Turkey and across the border in Syria. Although it may not have thought so at the outset, Isis seems ever more persuaded in its view of Turkey as a hostile member of the US-led “crusader alliance”, and is punishing it accordingly. Ministers have hitherto resisted suggestions that Isis runs cells and networks inside Turkey, but given the arrests this position is hardly tenable. The government is also unwilling to accept that its security and counter-terror intelligence-gathering arrangements are faulty, or that by degrees the country is being sucked ever further into Syria’s civil war – although both conclusions appear increasingly inescapable. It seems plain that Erdoğan’s preference for blaming everything bad that happens on the Kurds is no longer working, that Turkish civilians are paying a terrible price for his wilful blindness to the jihadi threat, and that Turkey’s leaders must banish any remaining ambivalence and confront the Isis menace full on. This week Ankara patched up relations with Russia and Israel, both strong anti-Isis actors, and stepped up border cooperation with Nato air patrols – an indication that attitudes may be changing. The logical corollary of such a shift is for Erdoğan to halt his war of choice against the PKK, reinstitute last year’s ceasefire, and accept that the price for a united front to defeat Isis terror and halt the Syrian carnage is a comprehensive settlement with the Kurds.
i was contemplating a trip to Istanbul later this year. even absent the presence of ISIS, the political climate in that country is probably enough of a reason to not make that trip any time soon. still a bucket list city for me doe ...
why does it take 38 pages of bullshit to fucking say some-thing stupider than the last page ? better elect trump fast cause fucking Obama will just walk away like he did in Orlando. ISIS is not muslim or Christian . it derives from ISIS OF THE NILE- PRE-BIBLE STUFF once u can get off 38 pages of useless BS and talk something worth anything I will listen . until then keep it to yourself . thanks.
I prefer calling them Daesh to ISIS or ISIL, mostly because their leadership REALLY hates being called Daesh.
Last day of June. Who all was it that acted like I was crazy when I said it would be the end of the year, if then, when the battle for Mosul actually began?
top five revised- fournett cook cronkrite- done and as far as club throw money away in fernville- meh ????????? but ? u might be right . being honest I can see chubb like dubose never the same again . have u seen the kid at university high school run the football by the way ?
does the fact these bombers were Chechen change anything from a coalation perspective? brings Russia back to the table maybe?
Russia's had problems with Chechyna forever and some of ISIS best fighters come from there. If Russia does cooperate more with the US in regard to to ISIS I think it's more likely as a result of the failed SAA offensive on Raqqa/Tabqa.
Whenever I see Iceland at Euro, they go by ISL in the little score box, I always think they got hosed on that deal.
BREAKING: State-linked Saudi news sites report explosion near one of Islam's holiest sites in Medina.
and one near our consulate in Jeddah http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middl...ng&ns_source=twitter&ns_linkname=news_central
Some of their best commanders are chechen. Being that they have the most experience with guerrilla tactics etc. So nothing new imo
Liz Sly @LizSly 43m43 minutes ago This Baghdad attack is the worst ISIS bombing ever, never mind this week. The toll is now 222 dead.
John Arterbury @JohnArterbury John Arterbury Retweeted Ivan Sidorenko Syrian MiG-23 confirmed shot down over eastern Ghouta today Ivan Sidorenko @IvanSidorenko1 #Syria #Damascus #EastGhouta #EasternGhouta MiG-23 was Shot down by a Anti Aircraft Missile. Pilot Shawkat Suleiman announced Dead
Bangladesh home minister suggests Israel behind spate of killings http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36462026
War is Boring article on Syrian rebel anti-aircraft weapon use https://warisboring.com/syrian-rebe...r-al-assads-air-force-f384df34c205#.t3dvvg8lv
PM Abadi announces liberation of #Qayyarah airbase. Largest facility seized by ISIL returns to #Iraq. Noose tightens around #Mosul. #القيارة
SAS hero armed with just a Gurkha knife hacked to death three ISIS fanatics who attempted to capture him alive during an ambush in war-torn Iraq. One SAS source told the Daily Star on Sunday: "As soon as his ammunition was expended, the IS gunmen tried to storm him.“As they went to grab him he unsheathed his kukri and began slashing away.“He decapitated the first gunman, slit the throat of second and killed another with a third blow. He then sliced away at three others. “The IS gunmen fled in panic allowing the SAS soldier to carry the injured men to safety. http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/685800/SAS-hero-ISIS-Gurkha-knife-Islamic-State-terror-Iraq