...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
group's reputation for invincibility but now need help dealing with a flood of refugees.
After talks with President Barack Obama
Ready to Rule from Day One...
in Washington, Massud Barzani thanked U.S.-led forces for their air support in the battle against the jihadists, but called for more humanitarian aid.
"We are proud of what we have achieved, because we believe we are on the frontline fighting on behalf of the free world this brutal terrorist organization," Barzani said."And it was by the hands of the peshmerga forces that they were able to destroy the myth of ISIS being this invincible force, but this has been a costly war."
Barzani said 1,200 Kurdish peshmerga troops have been killed fighting to hold back the IS forces that swept out of their bases in Iraq and Syria last year and seized several cities.
Kurdish forces prevented IS from advancing far from the mainly Arab cities they have seized in Iraq and into the area controlled by Barzani's autonomous Kurdish region.
But they now find themselves dealing with "more than one-and-a-half million refugees and internally displaced people," many from ethnic and religious minority groups that are prey to the Sunni Islamist bully boys.
"We believe that we have a humanitarian as well as a national responsibility," he told guests at Washington think tank the Atlantic Council. "But of course the burden is huge and we cannot afford it alone.
"That's why we call upon the United States and our friends in the international community to come and help the Kurdistan regional authority with these needs."
Barzani said he had met with the leaders of the Christian, Turkmen and Yazidi minorities and had assured them that the Islamic State threat can be defeated.
And he told them: "We do not want any of you to think about leaving the country, going to be asylum-seekers abroad. I assure you that we will be together. Either we will live freely in our country or we will die together."
The Kurdish leader confirmed he regarded his Tuesday meeting with Obama as successful,
| ...for a given definition of success that is not herein defined... |
Obama Meets Iraqi Kurd Leader
[AnNahar] U.S. President Barack Obama
Because I won...
met the head of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region at the White House on Tuesday, courting a vital ally on the frontline of the fight against Islamic Death Eaters. Obama and Vice President
Joe Foreign Policy Whiz KidBiden
The former Senator-for-Life from Delaware, an example of the kind of top-notch Washington intellect to be found in the World's Greatest Deliberative Body...
met Massud Barzani to discuss the campaign to regain Iraqi territory lost to the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
group.
A U.S.-led coalition has carried out more than 3,000 air strikes over Iraq since September in a bid to dislodge the jihadists.
On the ground, battle lines have been drawn in Anbar province and the northern city of djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
, where Kurdish fighters are likely to play a key role in a looming offensive.
The city, a short distance from the Kurdish capital Arbil, holds special significance for the Islamic State murderous Moslems. It was there that IS leader His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us...
proclaimed his "caliphate" straddling Iraq and Syria.
Some 4,000-6,000 Iraqis -- many of whom fled the IS capture of djinn-infested Mosul -- are now being trained in Iraqi Kurdistan for the upcoming battle to retake the city.
| Good. Those are skills they'll need once ISIS has been driven out. |
But amid sensitivities over Kurdish self-rule, the White House did not allow the media to witness the meeting and said Obama "dropped by."
| Now that, my dears, is a very special level of diplomacy. Still, given the Kurds are known friends of Israel, it could have been considerably worse. |
| He's been busy, 'tis said. |
The Kurdish leader is on a week-long visit which will also include talks on Wednesday with state department officials.