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2021-02-28 Iraq

Once ravaged by IS, Iraq's Sinjar caught in new tug-of-war

[AlAhram] Nearly six years since Iraq's Sinjar region was recaptured from jihadists, a tangled web of geopolitical tensions risks sparking a new conflict that could prolong the dire situation of minority Yazidis.
The Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group overran Sinjar in 2014 and pursued a brutal, months-long campaign of massacres, enslavement and rape against Yazidis in what the UN has said could amount to genocide.

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Sinjar is wedged between ~~The Sick Man of Europe~~ Turkey
...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire...
to the north and Syria to the west, making it a highly strategic zone long coveted by both the central government in Baghdad and autonomous Kurdish authorities of the north.

Sinjar was retaken from IS in 2015 by fighters from the autonomous Kurdistan region's Peshmerga and from Syrian Kurdish units, backed by the US-led coalition.

Iran-backed units from within the Iraqi Hashed al-Shaabi network of militias also took surrounding territory.

This fractious patchwork of forces delayed Sinjar's revival: the federal government had barely any presence there and international aid groups were wary of investing.

In an effort to kick-start reconstruction and get displaced Yazidis home, the Sinjar Agreement reached in October stipulated that the only arms in the area should be those of the federal government. But it has yet to be implemented.

'EXPLOSION AT ANY TIME'
"The reality on the ground is stronger than these agreements. No one in Sinjar wants to let go of the influence they've earned there," said Yassin Tah, an analyst based in the region.

"Sinjar today is a zone that brings together all the conflicting agendas and rival parties of the region.

On the one hand, the autonomous Kurdish regional government (KRG) claims Sinjar is within its zone of control.

The KRG is irked by the presence of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a rival faction operating in north Iraq for decades and whose Syrian branch helped fight IS in Sinjar.

The PKK's role also infuriates Ankara, which calls it a "terrorist" group for its decades-long insurgency in Turkey and has crossed into Iraq to bomb the PKK.

"Turkey is watching Sinjar -- and it's seeing the PKK grow more powerful there," said Tah, the analyst.

In January, Ankara upped the ante, bombing a mountainous region close to Sinjar and hinting it could invade.

"We may come there overnight, all of a sudden," warned President His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First

His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First

...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important...
Erdogan's veiled threat, in turn, gave an excuse to pro-Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate ~~Jews~~ ~~Zionists~~ Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
Hashed factions to insist on staying in Sinjar.

The Hashed swiftly announced sending new fighters to Sinjar while one of its hardline members, Asaib Ahl al-Haq said it would "block any aggressive behaviour" by Turkey.

'SINJAR IS SUFFERING'
Tah said the quick mobilisation was an effort to defend the Hashed's crucial smuggling route between Iraq and Syria, which crosses through Sinjar.

A top Iraqi military official in Nineveh province, where Sinjar is located, even admitted the rivalries, saying Turkey, gangs and rival Kurds were all trying to "secure their interests via Sinjar".

Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi has rushed to defuse the tensions, with a top official in his office telling AFP there was ongoing contact with Turkey to try to hold off an incursion.

If conflict does erupt in Sinjar, Kadhemi would have a lot to lose, wrote Nussaibah Younis, a visiting fellow at the European Council for Foreign Relations.

"It would undermine the political victory that the Sinjar Agreement afforded to Kadhemi (and) burnish the image of the (Hashed) and other militia groups as defenders of Iraq at the central government's expense," Younis said.

It would also "hamper the return of vulnerable displaced Yazidis to Sinjar," she wrote.

Ali Abbas, front man for Iraq's migration ministry, told AFP there are 90,000 families from Sinjar who remain displaced, most of them in the KRG-run region.

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