Attacks Drop Across Iraq But Casualties Remain High In August 2014

 

August saw the fewest security incidents in Iraq of 2014 yet casualties remained exceedingly high. The month saw the second most deaths and wounded of the year. The figures remained large despite the drop in attacks due to massacres by the Islamic State in its conquered territory and a report on peshmerga losses in Ninewa. Fighting remains heated in several parts of Iraq meaning that casualties will continue at these levels for the foreseeable future.

There were just 830 security incidents in August. That passed the previous low of 878 seen in June. For the month, Baghdad saw the most with 207 attacks, followed by 170 in Salahaddin, and 144 in Anbar. There was a decided drop in violence in August from 265 incidents from August 1-8, to 178 from August 9-14, 150 from August 15-21, a little increase to 179 from August 22-28, and the 58 in the last three days of the month.

These attacks led to 2,668 deaths and 3,640 wounded. Only June saw more with 2,851 killed and 3,677 injured. In August the dead were made up of 299 peshmerga, 281 members of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), 65 Sahwa, and 2,023 civilians, while the wounded included 608 peshmerga, 466 ISF, 20 Sahwa, and 2,546 civilians. The high Kurdish losses were due to one report at the beginning of August that said 200 peshmerga were killed and 500 wounded in fighting in Ninewa. In total, 254 peshmerga were killed and 516 injured in that province last month. Another 40 died and 73 were wounded in Diyala around Jalawla, 4 killed and 13 injured in Salahaddin, and 1 death and 6 wounded in Kirkuk. For the ISF they suffered the most dead in Salahaddin, 77, Baghdad, 56, Babil, 45, Anbar 44, Diyala 39, and ten each in Ninewa and Kirkuk. There were also several massacres in the press. August 3 after the fall of Sinjar 70 Yazidis were killed. Two days later another 300 were said to have been executed. August 15 the town of Kojo was taken by the Islamic State resulting in 84 more Yazidis losing their lives. Other examples were the execution of 14 kidnapped police in Shirqat in Salahaddin on August 2. That same day 20 other bodies were discovered there. On August 9 200 bodies were found at Camp Speicher outside of Tikrit, Salahaddin. There were plenty of other incidents as well with IS the likely culprit. So far in 2014 there have been a total of 15,003 fatalities reported in the press along with 24,417 wounded.

Violence In Iraq By Month 2014

Month	Security Incidents	Dead	Wounded	Shootings	Bombs	Car Bombs
Jan	1,014	1,483 427 ISF 69 Sahwa 2 Asayesh 985 Civilians	2,880 646 ISF 48 Sahwa 2,186 Civilians	468	501	96
Feb	945	1,274 516 ISF 58 Sahwa 2 Peshmerga 698 Civilians	2,526 702 ISF 93 Sahwa 3 Peshmerga 1,728 Civilians	428	474	84
Mar	996	1,606 567 ISF 48 Sahwa 2 Asayesh 989 Civilians	2,901 631 ISF 57 Sahwa 1 Asayesh 2,212 Civilians	417	550	82
Apr	999	1,456 538 ISF 46 Sahwa 1 Asayesh 871 Civilians	2,905 806 ISF 53 Sahwa 1 Asayesh 2,040 Civilians	376	583	79
May	905	1,468 506 ISF 77 Sahwa 1 Peshmerga 884 Civilians	2,610 719 ISF 50 Sahwa 1,841 Civilians	370	506	81
Jun	878	2,851 844 ISF 31 Sahwa 62 Peshmerga 1,914 Civilians	3,677 750 ISF 47 Sahwa 198 Peshmerga 1 Asayesh 2,681 Civilians	436	343	58
Jul	923	2,197 426 ISF 28 Sahwa 60 Peshmerga 1,683 Civilians	3,278 738 ISF 24 Sahwa 175 Peshmerga 2,341 Civilians	450	685	42
Aug	830	2,668 281 ISF 65 Sahwa 299 Peshmerga 2,023 Civilians	3,640 466 ISF 20 Sahwa 608 Peshmerga 2,546 Civilians	364	387	59
Totals	7,490	15,003 4,105 ISF 422 Sahwa 5 Asayesh 424 Peshmerga 10,047 Civilians	24,417 5,458 ISF 392 Sahwa 3 Asayesh 984 Peshmerga 17,575 Civilians	3,309	6,838	581

Violence In Iraq By Week 2014

Date	Incidents	Dead	Wounded
Jan 1-7	244	363	736
Jan 8-14	272	364	683
Jan 15-21	205	358	616
Jan 22-28	236	305	618
Jan 29-31	57	93	237
JAN	1,014	1,483	2,890
Feb 1-7	204	296	700
Feb 8-14	226	258	505
Feb 15-21	264	346	703
Feb 22-28	251	374	618
FEB	945	1,274	2,526
Mar 1-7	253	412	702
Mar 8-14	206	324	612
Mar 15-21	216	423	736
Mar 22-27	211	279	580
Mar 28-31	110	168	271
MAR	996	1,606	2,901
Apr 1-7	238	259	550
Apr 8-14	223	362	646
Apr 15-21	251	406	786
Apr 22-28	226	347	744
Apr 29-30	61	82	179
APR	999	1,456	2,905
May 1-7	198	246	483
May 8-14	257	469	752
May 15-21	183	256	426
May 22-28	204	407	817
May 29-31	63	90	132
MAY	905	1,468	2,610
Jun 1-7	224	588	1,021
Jun 8-14	227	658	887
Jun 15-21	170	729	564
Jun 22-28	170	720	775
Jun 29-30	56	127	236
JUN	877	2,822	3,483
Jul 1-7	200	511	622
Jul 8-14	211	577	625
Jul 15-21	225	398	1,000
Jul 22-28	223	549	801
Jul 29-31	65	162	230
JUL	924	2,197	3,278
Aug 1-8	265	951	885
Aug 9-14	178	709	1,152
Aug 15-21	150	348	499
Aug 22-28	179	542	815
Aug 29-31	58	118	289
AUG	830	2,668	3,640

Security Incidents In Iraq By Province Aug 2014

Province	Security Incidents	Dead	Wounded	Types of Attack
Anbar	144	414 44 ISF 32 Sahwa 338 Civilians	694 44 ISF 9 Sahwa 641 Civilians	62 Shootings 9 IEDs 6 Suicide Car Bombs 8 Car Bombs 1 Suicide Bomber 1 Sticky Bomb
Babil	57	99 45 ISF 3 Sahwa 51 Civilians	184 72 ISF 2 Sahwa 110 Civilians	27 Shootings 19 IEDs 3 Suicide Car Bombs 2 Car Bombs 3 Sticky Bombs
Baghdad	207	439 56 ISF 2 Sahwa 381 Civilians	1,017 116 ISF 901 Civilians	64 Shootings 73 IEDs 3 Suicide Car Bombs 20 Car Bombs 2 Suicide Bombers 17 Sticky Bombs
Basra	12	10 10 Civilians	21 21 Civilians	8 Shootings 3 IEDs
Diyala	93	249 39 ISF 40 Peshmerga 170 Civilians	258 24 ISF 73 Peshmerga 161 Civilians	48 Shootings 27 IEDs 4 Suicide Car Bombers 2 Car Bombs 22 Suicide Bombers
Karbala	9	14 14 Civilians	40 40 Civilians	1 Shooting 8 IEDs 2 Car Bombs
Kirkuk	58	124 10 ISF 3 Sahwa 1 Peshmerga 110 Civilians	321 6 Peshmerga 310 Civilians	20 Shootings 29 IEDs 3 Car Bombs
Ninewa	73	795 10 ISF 254 Peshmerga	563 17 ISF 516 Peshmerga 30 Civilians	43 Shootings 22 IEDs 2 Car Bombs 2 Suicide Bombers
Qadisiyah	6		5 5 Civilians	6 IEDs
Salahaddin	170	524 77 ISF 25 Sahwa 4 Peshmerga 418 Civilians	537 188 ISF 9 Sahwa 13 Peshmerga 327 Civilians	91 Shootings 74 IEDs 1 Suicide Car Bomb 2 Car Bombs 5 Suicide Bombers 4 Sticky Bombs
Wasit	1			1 Car Bomb

Another driver of the high casualties in August were wave after wave of car bombs. There were 59 car bombs for the month, which was nowhere near the highest figure in 2014. What was different was the frequency of these attacks. There were six waves during the month with only one day in between them except for the last one when there was a two day hiatus. Usually there are several days in between series, sometimes lasting up to almost a week. The Islamic State’s capture of ISF weapons dumps were the likely cause of this sustained campaign. These attacks left 381 fatalities and 699 injured.

Car Bomb Attacks In Iraq Aug 2014

Date	Location	Dead	Wounded
Aug 1	Haditha, Anbar Sadr City, Baghdad	16	25
Aug 2	Rawa, Anbar Balad & Dujail, Salahaddin	8	42
Aug 3	Outside Haditha, Anbar
Aug 4	?, Anbar		5
Aug 5
Aug 6	Outside Fallujah, Anbar New Baghdad x2, Sadr City x2, Ur x2, Baghdad Aliya Rash, Ninewa	48	96
Aug 7	Kadhimiya, Baghdad Kirkuk, Kirkuk	25	90
Aug 8	Fallujah & West of Ramadi, Anbar Sadr City, Baghdad	2	7
Aug 9
Aug 10	Haditha, Anbar Jalawla x3, Diyala
Aug 11	Diyala Bridge, Baghdad Aziziya, Wasit	4	8
Aug 12	Karrada  & Zafaraniya, Baghdad	17	51
Aug 13	Amil, Baya & New Baghdad, Baghdad	18	43
Aug 14	Jalawla, Diyala	5	13
Aug 15	Ramadi, Anbar
Aug 16
Aug 17	Yusifiya, Baghdad
Aug 18	Iskandiriya x2, Babil	1	16
Aug 19	Iskandiriya, Babil
Aug 20	Husseiniya & Palestine St, Baghdad	11	30
Aug 21
Aug 22	South of Tikrit, Salahaddin	11	30
Aug 23	Baghdadi, Anbar Karrada, Baghdad Kirkuk, Kirkuk	16	40
Aug 24	Shula, Baghdad	5	12
Aug 25	Hillah x2, Babil Kadhimiya x2, Baghdad Tweij x2, Karbala Mosul, Ninewa	30	84
Aug 26	New Baghdad, Baghdad	12	35
Aug 27
Aug 28
Aug 29	Tuz Kharmato, Salahaddin	8	30
Aug 30	Amiriya Fallujah x2, Anbar Yusifiya, Baghdad Anjana, Diyala	11	25
Aug 31	Ramadi x2	13	17
TOTALS	59	381	699

The government played a large role in the monthly casualty count as well. Indiscriminate shelling, which was mostly concentrated in Anbar cost the lives of 246 people, and wounded another 541. Air strikes led to another 172 deaths and 128 injured. The ISF continues to treat any area under insurgent control as a legitimate target and consistently hits civilians almost every day. Bad intelligence and coordination between the different branches of the armed forces likely accounted for the indiscriminate nature of these strikes along with a disregard for civilian casualties.

Casualties From Government Shelling 2014

Date	Dead	Wounded
Aug 1-7	77	196
Aug 8-14	29	66
Aug 15-21	69	137
Aug 22-28	73	114
Aug 29-31	18	94
TOTAL	246	541

Casualties From Air Strikes 2014

Date	Dead	Wounded
Aug 1-7	58	56
Aug 8-14	39	49
Aug 15-21	11
Aug 22-28	26	23
Aug 29-31	38
TOTAL	172	128

SOURCES

Agence France Presse, "13 killed in bomb attacks on Iraq forces in Ramadi," 8/31/14

Alsumaria, "Cleaning villages and the killing of nine elements of Daash north of Baquba," 8/11/14

- "Killing and wounding 16 people, including four children in as mortar shells fall on Fallujah," 8/24/14

- "Killing and wounding 19 people including a child and two women in the fall of mortars on Fallujah," 8/23/14

- "Killing and wounding 28 people including women and children in the fall of mortars in Fallujah," 8/22/14

Buratha News, "200 bodies found near Base Speicher believed to be students killed by Daash gang," 8/9/14

eKurd, "After Peshmerga pullout, hundreds of missing Iraqi Kurdish Yazidis feared dead," 8/4/14

Al Forat, "14 Intelligence officers executed by ISIL in Shurqat," 8/2/14

- "20 unidentified corpses discovered in Shurqat," 8/20/14

Iraq Times, "Martyrdom and wounding 650 elements of the Peshmerga in battles with the Daash terrorist organization," 8/8/14

Al Jazeera, "Suicide attack kills soldiers near Baghdad," 8/30/14

NINA, "Two car bombs exploded south of Fallujah," 8/30/14

- "Urgent../25/ civilians and security forces killed and injured in a car bomb in downtown Ramadi," 8/31/14

Osgood, Patrick and Tahir, Rawaz, "Iraq's Yezidi minority faces massacre," Iraq Oil Report, 8/6/14

Radio Free Iraq, "26 August 2014," Daily Updates from Anbar, 8/26/14

Al Rayy, "Explosion of "Hummer bomb" by suicide bombers traveling near Baquba, north of defensive zone," 8/30/14

- "Two civilians were injured by a car bomb amid Tuz," 8/29/14

Rudaw, "At Least 8 Killed, 30 Wounded by Bomb, Mortars in Tuz," 8/29/14

Sly, Liz, "Islamic State fighters kill dozens of Yazidi villagers," Washington Post, 8/16/14

Will Abadi Be Any Different Than Maliki As Iraq’s Next Premier?

 

Many people are wondering whether prime minister nominee Haider Abadi will be any different from current premier Nouri al-Maliki since they are both from the Dawa Party. A comparison of Maliki to his predecessor Ibrahim al-Jaafari also of Dawa shows that membership in the party does not mean that any two individuals will rule the same. Maliki was accused of amassing too much power in his hands and being an autocrat, while Jaafari was known as a horrible manager who did little while the civil war broke out. Given that history Abadi will likely be his own man when he puts together a new ruling coalition.

Ibrahim al-Jaafari who was premier from 2005-2006 and Nouri al-Maliki both lived lives of exile during the Baathist period. Jaafari was a doctor by profession and joined the Dawa Party while he was at the University of Mosul in 1966. During a government campaign against the party in 1980 he fled to Iran where he lived for almost ten years. In 1989 he relocated to London where he was a spokesman for Dawa. It appeared he left on friendly terms with Iranian officials. (1) Nouri al-Maliki became a member of Dawa when he was a teenager following the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Upon the suggestion of the party he went to Usual al-Din College in Baghdad, which was founded by Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr the spiritual leader of the movement. He later received a degree in Arab Literature. Like Jaafari Maliki fled Iraq and eventually ended up in Iran after a government crackdown in 1979. There he helped run Dawa’s armed wing against the Baathist government. Like Jaafari, Maliki left in 1990 over Tehran’s attemptto take over the party, and moved to Syria where he continued his clandestine activities. Although their professional background was different, they both came from well off families and joined Dawa around the same time, and were forced to flee their homeland as a result. That led them to Iran, which was considered an inspiration to many party members after its 1979 revolution. That eventually wore off for Maliki who resented Iran’s attempt to control his party, but not so much for Jaafari. He ended up going to the West, while Maliki remained in the Middle East, probably because he was a leader in the armed faction and needed to stay in the region to help run its activities. Still, they held much in common.

Jaafari and Maliki returned to Iraq in 2003 and became premier back to back, but their styles of governing were complete opposites. Following the January 2005 elections, Jaafari was made premier in May. He was known as being an intellectual who loved to talk about philosophy and political thinkers. In July 2005 for example, he met with President George W. Bush in Washington where he went on and on about how much he loved Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and other American presidents. In terms of governance Jaafari was completely ineffective. The premier’s chief of staff said that the prime minister’s office was disorganized, while a U.S. diplomat noted that the office was staffed with Dawa members who had no experience in administration. Jaafari himself attempted to micro-manage everything and did little as a result. Many in the U.S. and Iraq ended up blaming him for the civil war when it broke out his first year in office. He did nothing about the Bard Brigade for example, which took over the Interior Ministry under his government, and began using its commandos to carry out sectarian arrests and killings. Maliki turned out to be the complete opposite, although that was not apparent at first. He was chosen to replace Jaafari in 2006. The Sadrists were one of his main supporters, and Maliki returned the favor by protecting its Mahdi Army, which had become the main militia fighting in the sectarian war from the U.S. When the civil war was subsiding he turned on them seeing them as a possible rival and launched the Charge of the Knights in Basra, Amara, and Baghdad. He would then challenge the insurgency in Mosul, and the Kurds in Diyala. This made him widely popular as an Iraqi nationalist, and helped his new State of Law coalition win the 2009 provincial and 2010 parliamentary elections. Along the way he created his own command system over the security forces, took over the intelligence agencies, went after his opponents, became the acting Defense and Interior Ministers, and gained control over the judiciary all of which led to his image as an autocrat. Although Jaafari and Maliki joined Dawa during the same period, and both went into exile in Iran where they participated in plans to overthrow Saddam Hussein they could not be more different when they became premier. Jaafari loved to talk people to death about esoteric topics, while doing very little as leader of Iraq. Maliki was accused of seizing too much power, and doing too much. Their shared experiences therefore did not shape their vision of how to run Iraq nor their management styles.

Haider Abad’s life started out similar to Jaafari and Maliki’s, but then turned out much different. Like the other two, Abadi came from a well off family. Similar to Maliki, Abadi joined Dawa in 1967 as a teen. He then got a bachelor’s degree at the University of Technology in Baghdad where he became a lecturer in Electrical Engineering making him a professional as Jaafari was. The difference was that Abadi ended up going to London for graduate school and his doctorate in the 1970s. During that period he became the head of the Dawa Party in England where Jaafari would later work with him. After 2003 he was made Communications Minister, and then elected to parliament in 2005 where he was made chairman of the economic committee specializing on reviving the state owned enterprises. He later served as an adviser to Maliki and was put in charge of Tal Afar, which was then under insurgent control. In recent years, he was on the finance committee where he pushed for cutting off budget payments to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) for its independent oil policy. Unlike Jaafari’s reputation as a philosopher and Maliki’s as an autocrat, Abadi is known for being a technocrat. He has been a State of Law loyalist as well, but that could be expected since he has been in Dawa for most of his life.

Given the history of Jaafari and Maliki and their time in office there is no reason to believe that Abadi will be like them. Jaafari and Maliki were complete opposites while prime minister even though their time as Dawa members had many similarities. Abadi has even fewer things in common with those two. His technocratic background might be just what Iraq needs during this moment of crisis. Working on problem solving rather than political disputes would be a huge step forward. At the same time, his early statements about what he wants to do in government cannot be taken at face value. He has called for a trimmed down government and for militias to all be under state control. Jaafari and Maliki made similar comments when they took office, but did nothing substantial about them. Only when Abadi actually becomes prime minister and starts forming policy will it be known whether he will be similar or different from his predecessors.

FOOTNOTES

1. Worth, Robert, “Iraq’s New Presidential Names Shiite Leader as Prime Minister,” New York Times, 4/7/05

SOURCES

Arango, Tim and Gordon, Michael, “Next Leader May Echo Maliki, But Iraqis Hope for New Results,” New York Times, 8/19/14

Associated Press, “Shiites choose nominee for Iraq prime minister,” 4/21/06

Buratha News, “Who is the prime minister-designate to form the next government, Haider Abadi?” 8/11/14

Burns, John, “Precarious Cease-Fire in Amara Holds,” New York Times, 10/22/06

Cole, Juan, “Saving Iraq: Mission impossible,” Salon, 5/11/06

Gordon, Michael and Trainor, General Bernard, The Endgame, The Inside Story of the Struggle for Iraq, From George W. Bush to Barak Obama, (New York: Pantheon Books, 2012)

Michaels, Jim, “Shiites Redefine Battle in Baghdad,” USA Today, 8/10/06

Parker, Ned and Salman, Raheem, "Notes From The Underground: The Rise of Nouri al-Maliki," World Policy Institute, May 2013

Sullivan, Marisa Cochrane, “FACT SHEET: IBRAHIM AL-JAAFARI,” Institute for the Study of War,” 5/12/10

Tavernise, Sabrina, “Many Iraqis See Sectarian Roots in New Killings,” New York Times, 5/27/05

Worth, Robert, “Iraq’s New Presidential Names Shiite Leader as Prime Minister,” New York Times, 4/7/05

The Plight Of Iraq’s Yazidis In Ninewa Province Interview With Christine van den Toorn

The Islamic State’s recent attack upon the Sinjar area of Ninewa province has brought world attention to the plight of Iraq’s Yazidis. Insurgents have targeted the small religious group for years, but after Sinjar was taken there were mass executions and kidnappings of more than 1,000 women by the Islamists. The situation was made worse by unfulfilled promises by local Kurdish officials to protect the community. To help explain the situation is Christine van den Toorn who runs The Primary Source a Sulaymaniya based research group, and who is also reporting for Iraq Oil Report and the Daily Beast from northern Iraq. She can be followed on Twitter @vandentoorn.

1. Northern Ninewa province is home to many of Iraq’s minorities including the Yazidis. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has made a concerted effort to reach out and co-opt these groups. What kinds of policies did the Kurdish political parties carry out in the Sinjar area?

 An insurgent inside a KDP office in Sinjar. The KDP dominated the politics of the area

KRG – really KDP [Kurdistan Democratic Party] – policies in Sinjar and other minority, especially Yazidi, communities in Ninewa are a perfect example of patronage politics. I say the KDP because it is the ruling party in Dohuk province and in Ninewa among Kurdish and minority populations. 

The relationship began with the provision of security during and after the U.S. led invasion of Iraq. Peshmerga forces secured minority Yazidi and Christian areas in Ninewa, including Sinjar. This became increasingly important over the years as Al Qaeda’s presence grew in and around Mosul threatening minority communities. The most deadly attack during the U.S. occupation was in Qahtaniya in southern Sinjar. Over 700 Yazidis were killed. So the KRG and the KDP peshmerga became the guarantors of security for Yazidis in Sinjar.

Under this umbrella of security, the KDP showered those loyal to the Party with handouts, salaries and jobs. This came at the expense of quality. For example thousands of people hired as teachers by the Party for the KRG did not have degrees or any background in their subjects. In addition to teachers, many Sinjaris are employed by the KDP as party officials, police and peshmerga. There is a general feeling – though this true for all of Kurdistan region – that someone cannot get a job or access power if they are not in the Party.

In addition to jobs there are handouts – stipend of monthly salary for turning a building into a KDP office, especially before elections, for example. There were dozens in even small towns in Sinjar.

The KDP really infiltrated every aspect of life. Last spring for example there was a group wedding sponsored by the KDP where Party flags were hung and Party songs were played. Before elections – for example national elections last April – the town was covered in yellow and red KDP flags and there were rallies every week to which girls and women wear yellow and red dresses.

There are also attempts to change the education system from Arabic and the Baghdad system to Kurdish and the KRG system. Many KRG affiliated schools have opened and teach in Kurdish. While Sinjaris' first language is Kermanji Kurdish, they also speak Arabic and many still want to study in the language they see as useful.

In return for the jobs and security people in Sinjar have voted overwhelmingly disproportionate for the KDP, and to a lesser extent the PUK, in elections. Many have said to me over the years that KDP, Kurdish power in Ninewa is all on the back of Sinjar. They have consistently sent KDP candidates to the parliament in Baghdad and to the Ninewa provincial council.

The issue here is that while the majority of voters and population of Sinjar is Yazidi, somehow many of the candidates who win seats are Muslim Kurds. (This reflects greater Ninewa - a disproportionate number of Muslim Kurds win seats in a province where there are not that many Muslims Kurds. There have though been huge demographic shifts since 2005 as minority populations, Yazidis and Christian have fled Ninewa and in some cases Kurds have repopulated the areas, like Shaikhan.)  Number-wise, this just doesn’t make sense. There aren’t enough Muslim Kurds to put 4 on the Mosul council, for example. Last time in the Ninewa provincial council, Yazidis won 7 of the 11 Kurdish List seats, and “only 7” in their minds. To explain this, Yazidis say the KDP manipulates voting districts and suppresses Yazidi votes. The Party pushes Muslim Kurdish candidates in highly populated areas and marginalizes Yazidi candidates during the campaign. Locals say they also suppress the number of Yazidi votes by committing fraud during vote counting. For example Saido Jito was a Yazidi candidate from Sinjar many expected to be president of the council, but he did not even win a seat. (He later got on the council when another KDP winner took a leadership post.) He was one of many Yazidis expected to win. Moreover, Yazidis from Sinjar were not happy, to say the least, when despite winning those 7 seats they did not even receive a leadership position on the council. Rather 2 Muslim Kurds were selected for president and first deputy.

A recent local example of this is that Yazidis in Sinjar who were Party, government and peshmerga officials said that there had been meetings to which they were not invited in recent months. In addition, after peshmerga regrouped in Dohuk after the withdrawal from Sinjar, Yezidi peshmerga were told not to come back. 

This reflects that even though the KRG and KDP say publicly that Yazidis are Kurds, the "original Kurds," most Kurds and the KRG don’t really consider Yazidis Kurdish Kurds or real Kurds. They are not fully trusted by the KRG. They are also second class citizens socially and religiously. Derogatory stereotypes are common in Kurdish and Iraqi Arab society that Yazidis – and their food water and tea – are dirty, don’t shower, and worship the devil.

KDP and KRG also uses the claim that Sinjar, or “Shingal” in Kurdish, is a historic part of Kurdistan to justify their takeover of the area.

Despite the second class treatment, Yazidis have no one else to turn to and need the jobs and security the KDP and KRG provide. However now that the provision of security is gone, that might change.

And it is a two way street. As the KRG and Kurdish Kurds, Yazidis consider themselves Kurds in varying degrees. They consider their religious identity first and second and sometimes third. Some Yazidis say they are Kurds, some say maybe they are Kurds or used to be Kurds, and others will say they are not Kurdish. Some Yazidis' Kurdish identity has more to do with politics, allegiance to the KRG, others say it is due to cultural and historic claims.

Identity aside, the main reason the KRG and the KDP are present in Sinjar is politics and oil. They want to fortify and extend Kurdish rule in Ninewa where there are unexplored, like in Shaikhan, Bashiqa and Al Qosh.

The most important point here is that over the past ten years the KRG, and really the KDP, became not just the main but the only guarantors of security in Sinjar and then withdrew that security when ISIS attacked, leaving Yazidis in the hands of the militant Islamic group.

2. Before the summer insurgent offensive there had been some earlier attacks upon the people of Sinjar in the spring of 2014. What happened then?

Since 2012 Yazidis and other minorities, Shabak and Christians, were increasingly targeted in and around Mosul. Students from Sinjar and Bashiqa going to university in Mosul were threatened and one day two of their drivers were killed in a cafeteria. In May Yazidis from Sinjar were killed in Rabiaa while going on the annual tomato harvest. (See article below.)  These are just two of many incidents.

Over the past two months since ISIS entered Mosul, the militant group took control of every district around Sinjar except the road from Sinjar through Rabiaa to Dohuk. They had Sinjar surrounded, and carried out many attacks that should have led Kurdish security officials to be more concerned about a potential larger incursion like the one that happened on August 3.

ISIS was in control of Baaj to the south of Sinjar, Tel Afar to the east, and had positions all over the farms of Raabia to the north. Peshmerga still controlled the road from Sinjar to Dohuk that goes through Raabia, but there were attacks along it, mostly on Shia Turkmen who had fled Tel Afar to Sinjar and were then going to Dohuk. Several times in July mortars were fired from Baaj on villages in south Sinjar like Tel Banat and Belej. Officials and locals said ISIS and local Arabs allied with them fired the mortars.

Yazidis from the villages south of the mountains like Sebaya and Tel Banat told me that weekly and sometimes daily there were mortars fired into their towns and occasionally shots fired on their cars over the past two months, and even before. They requested help and weapons from the KDP office in Sinjar but were denied, and told it was not their job to give out guns.

3. After Mosul fell in June it seemed like the Kurdish authorities were not too concerned with the insurgent offensive, while the Yazidis wanted to leave the Sinjar area. Why were there these differing views of the militants’ victories?

With good reason, over the past two months citizens of Sinjar have been extremely worried, upset, anxious, to say the least, that ISIS would come to their town next. Families now recall daily debate and conversations about leaving.

One factor that kept them in Sinjar was the constant reassurances from the KDP and Kurdish security forces that they were there to protect them and encouraged them to stay in Sinjar. KDP officials were told to keep people calm and tell them to stay in Sinjar. Lower ranking party members were told by their higher ups if people left their neighborhoods and districts their salaries would be cut.

Many Yazidis in Sinjar asked for weapons (especially after peshmerga took much of the Iraqi Army and Iraq Border Police equipment after they withdrew) to defend their areas but were constantly denied, told that it was not the peshmerga or Party’s job to give out weapons, but to protect locals.

Many have said that the KRG focused all of their energy on Kirkuk, and the KDP moved all of its weapons there from Sinjar. Kirkuk is the prize, and KDP probably wanted to challenge PUK authority there. Despite all of the signs of an ISIS attack on Sinjar, they put little effort into defending the district.

Any way you cut the cake this was a massive strategic and security failure. It is difficult to imagine that the KRG did not even consider an attack possible on Sinjar considering Daash perception of Yazidis and that they had the district surrounded. Moreover geographically it is the only district remaining that interrupted the “caliphate.”

While the failure is partially because Kurds were overstretched and overextended and just incapable of defending all this land against ISIS, I’d argue some of it has roots in Kurdish, KDP paper tiger patronage politics, and a feeling among the KRG that Yazidis aren’t really Kurds and when push comes to shove won't be defended, especially if there is a chance they will lose.

4. What happened when the Islamic State finally attacked the Sinjar area?

The ISIS attack on Sinjar came around 2:00am on the morning of Sunday, August 3. They first attacked southern villages like Tel Banat and Sebaya with mortars and then with ground forces and pick up trucks from Baaj district south of Sinjar. Local Yazidi men fought for hours, until 7:00 to 8:00 am when they ran out of ammunition. Many men from these villages said they fought because they expected the peshmerga to come support them but Kurdish forces never arrived. Some had even more troubling stories of calling KDP and peshmerga friends and officials who told them that back up was coming, but it never did, and in reality the peshmerga and KDP had already withdrawn. In each village that fought, hundreds of men died, though they also reported killing Dassh elements. A man from Sebaya suspected ISIS killed around 400 local men in the fighting, not including the massacres that followed.

Sometime in the early morning hours, 8 to 10 thousand peshmerga troops, and upper level KDP officials withdrew. One of the first was the head of branch 17 in Sinjar Sarbast Baiperi. He left actually the night before, sneaking out in a car with only a couple guards. It is important to note that some peshmerga – handfuls here and there – stayed to fight. 

When Yazidis arrived to safety in Syria and in Tirbka checkpoint north of the mountain, it was strange for them to see KDP and peshmerga from Sinjar already there.

It is important to note that some officials and peshmerga did stay to help fight ISIS and evacuate civilians. However they were few and far between.

And not only did peshmerga not fight, they did not evacuate civilians which meant that thousands of other men were massacred (lined up and shot) and hundreds of women, girls and even whole families were captured by Daash. They are now being held in villages around Tel Afar, Badush prison, Kayara airport hangers and many are being sold in the Mosul souq.

Not only did troops and officials leave, but they did not tell anyone they were leaving. They gave no warning to people on the northside of the mountain, for example, which could have prevented hundreds, thousands of deaths. All people I talked to recounted hearing about the ISIS attack from friends and family members on the southside of the mountain.

Even when some people heard ISIS attacked they stayed because they thought peshmerga would fight back and protect them.

This withdrawal, lack of warning and no evacuation led people to stay in their homes for hours longer than they should have, and hence led to thousands of deaths and kidnappings.

5. To what extent did local Sunni Arabs or Muslims participate in the attack?

Besides the withdrawal of officials and security forces, Yazidis say the main reason things went so wrong on August 3 was because of participation of their Arab, Muslim neighbors.

However they will also admit it is a mixed bag. While they say "most" Muslims sided with Daash, they talk about many individuals who helped Yazidis escape.

Yazidis from Sinjar say that their Muslim neighbors participated widely in attacks in three ways. One, they provided intelligence to ISIS about the Yazidi communities in Sinjar, like a mukhabarat. The Muslims of Sinjar also allowed ISIS to stay in their homes over past months to study towns, and even the night before the attacks. Last some Muslim either acted as passive bystanders to ISIS attacks or actively participated in the attacks.

Many have stories of recognizing their attackers on August 3 or in videos of massacres since then. One Yazidi man from Khanasor's kreef (a word that signifies a brother like relationship between Yazidis and Muslims) from Zako village is now known to be participating with Daash, for example. On the other hand, many Yazidis have stories of the kreef giving them cars and "Arab clothes" to help them escape, and warning them of the ISIS attack. Most Yazidis say the Shammar tribe in Rabiaa, with whom Yazidis from Sinjar have historic socioeconomic relations did not widely participate. Most of their shaykh had left early on after the ISIS attack as they were officials in the Mosul government.

Yazidis and Muslim Arabs and Kurds have lived side by side in Sinjar for centuries. They are friends, neighbors and kreef. They attend each other's weddings and funerals. So many were surprised, though not too surprised that many of their former friends collaborated. Some said they have never fully trusted Muslims, but that could be just in retrospect.

They explain the collaboration in several ways. Many say it is religion, their Muslim neighbors wanted to be part of the Islamic Caliphate which would give them more power. Many say it was politics. They say that the Sunni Arabs (Muslims) in Sinjar joined due to their loss of power in Sinjar, Ninewa and Iraq. Since 2003 the KDP has taken over Sinjar, giving Yazidi population who they consider Kurds new power. Yazidis say that the Muslims, or Sunni Arabs saw this as their chance to retake power. Many say Muslims stayed "because they could" and wanted to protect their property. 

Whether or not collaboration was widespread, even those Yazidis who don't blame Muslims or Sunni Arabs say that there will always be "something" there now, meaning that they will never be able to trust or live comfortably with them as neighbors again.

 YPG fighters from Syria helped secure routes for Yazidis to flee IS (Rojava Report)

6. The Kurds finally rallied their forces, but it appeared that this was largely due to the arrival of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) from Turkey and Syria. As I understand it there was a PKK camp in the area, but fighters also came in across from the Syrian border. Can you give some details of what transpired?

When the KDP and peshmerga were pulling out of Sinjar the morning of August 3, the YPG, the Syrian branch of the PKK, were pulling in. They fought ISIS and protected the route for Yazidis to leave the area. They then helped Yazidis on the mountain for the next week. Most famously, along with U.S. airstrikes, the YPG fighters cleared a path for the 40,000 Yazidis to exit the mountain. Today, they are still fighting on the mountain, and have trained thousands of Yazidi youth, boys and girls, from Sinjar to also fight ISIS in Sinjar as part of the new YBS, which translates to the Resistance Brigade of Shingal.

The YBS, YPG and Qassim Shesho's brigades have ambushed ISIS positions over the past week in villages north of the mountain and are reported to have taken back Dugre, Borek and Dohala towns. They however have only AKs and little ammo and will not be able to defeat Daash alone in Sinjar. (Qassim Shesho has become the hero of Sinjar, a local man who has pledged to never leave the mountain and is fighting with a rag tag groups of locals.)

The peshmerga reportedly are still nowhere to be seen. It is only the YBS, YPG and Qassim Shesho's brigade fighting ISIS from the mountain.

It will be difficult to retake Sinjar because it would require taking at least one of the surrounding districts, if not all, to totally eliminate the threat. Sinjar is surrounded by Daash on all sides (Baaj, Tel Afar, Rabiaa). From time to time YPG have had a semi-safe route from Syria to reach villages in the north. 

7. The U.S. has said that the Sinjar Mountain refugee crisis is largely over, but are there still people there and what is their situation?

It is hard to know exactly who is still on the mountain and why. I have heard from Sinjar friends that there are still civilians from Sinjar on the mountain, possibly around five thousand. Some of these people did not want to leave and have lived on the mountain for their whole lives in small villages and nomadic outposts. Others might not have been able to reach the safe passage provided by YPG and US airstrikes earlier this month.

There are also probably two to four thousand fighters on the mountains - Qassim Shesho and Kheri Shingaly and their brigades, the YPG, the new YBS (young men and women from Sinjar who the YPG has trained) and scattered other groups.

8. Finally, what’s in the future for the displaced Yazidis. Do they want to return to their homes if they’re retaken, do they want to stay in Kurdistan, do they want to be resettled somewhere else or some other alternative?

Yazidis from Sinjar want either to immigrate to the west or international protection for Sinjar.

Many Yazidis from Sinjar want to immigrate anywhere in the west - Europe, Canada, America or Australia. In their words "anywhere that Islam is not the majority." There are many in this group that say they will not return to Sinjar under any circumstance, that they "have forgotten Sinjar." This is a bold statement considering the historic and present attachment to Sinjar.

There are some who say they would agree to go back if there was "international protection," forces from the U.S. or UN. Yazidis also want a region formed in Ninewa for only minorities - Christians and Yazidis. They also discuss the need for an all Yazidi force to protect the Region alongside, for example, U.N. peacekeepers. They want only Yazidis from Sinjar to run the local government. (Yazidis from Bashiqa mostly say they will go back but only if there is international protection forces. They have a different attitude because there was no violence there and Muslim neighbors did not turn against them.)

There is a large divide between what Yazidis from Sinjar want and what their leaders are advocating for. Most of their leaders are in the KDP and are therefore toeing the Party and KRG line that Yazidis should stay in Kurdistan Region and Iraq and then go back to Sinjar. They do not want Yazidis moving abroad. That said is also potentially unrealistic that over 500,000 Yazidis will be accepted by one or two foreign states.

There are two main reasons they do not want to go home. One, they do not trust, and say they can never trust again, the KRG, Kurdish security forces and the Iraqi army to protect them. Two, they cannot trust their Arab, Muslim neighbors. They argue this is not the first time an army has attacked them under the banner of Islam and it will happen again.

SOURCES

Van den Toorn, Christine and Ashur, Nawaf, “attacks on harvest workers in northern iraq signal new security crisis,” Niqash, 5/29/14

- “How the U.S.-favored Kurds Abandoned the Yazidis when ISIS Attacked,” Daily Beast, 8/17/14