In a concerted strategy with Iran, and doubtless also with Turkey, the federal government in Baghdad is working to weaken the Federated Region of Kurdistan and undermine the stability of its autonomous model.
After using the oil weapon, which has deprived Kurdistan of its autonomous resources since the cessation of Kurdish oil exports via the Turkish pipeline last March, Baghdad has once again resorted to the budgetary weapon. Whereas, according to the budget voted last June, with the votes of Kurdish deputies, who gave the government a parliamentary majority, the Kurdistan Region was to receive a monthly allocation of 900 billion Iraqi dinars (around $650 million), Baghdad is finding all kinds of pretexts for no longer honoring this commitment.
The Kurdistan Regional Government had been partially compensating for this shortfall, which has lasted for months, thanks to revenues from its oil exports. The cessation of these exports has left the government destitute and unable to pay the salaries of civil servants and employees in its vast public sector. The region's economy has been weakened, and hopes of an imminent resumption of oil exports to ensure a minimum of financial autonomy are dwindling. With Turkey citing "technical problems", Baghdad is passing the buck to Ankara, which in turn is asking the Iraqi government to settle its dispute with Erbil. The Turkish Foreign Minister, Hakan Fidan, visited Baghdad on August 22, where, in addition to his counterpart Fouad Hussein, he met the Iraqi Prime Minister and President. On the agenda was the issue of water and dams on the Tigris and Euphrates, two rivers that originate in Kurdistan in Turkey before flowing into Iraq at ever-decreasing rates. Turkey, which makes good use of the water weapon in its dealings with Iraq and Syria, proposed the creation of a "permanent committee" to manage the water issue and promised "sustained dialogue" with Iraq, to which it reiterated its demand that the PKK be "recognized as a terrorist organization". No mention was made of the incessant violations of Iraqi sovereignty by the Turkish air force, which, in its war against the PKK, bombs military and civilian targets sometimes more than 100 km from the Turkish border, with complete impunity.
The question of resuming oil exports from Kurdistan was raised during the visit. "We hope to find a solution", said Iraqi Minister Fouad Hussein soberly. After Baghdad, the Turkish minister went on to Erbil, where he met the President and Prime Minister of Kurdistan. He promised them "an imminent resumption of exports". In the meantime, the suspension of exports has already cost Kurdistan and Iraq more than $4 billion, according to the Kurdistan Petroleum Industry Association (APIKUR).
Alerted by Kurdish leaders to urge the Iraqi government to honor its commitments and respect its constitutional obligations, the UN Mission and the United States are advising the Kurds to resolve their problems through dialogue with Baghdad. Successive visits by Kurdish delegations were unsuccessful, plunging Kurdistan into a serious financial crisis. On August 24, a new delegation went to Baghdad to take part in the drafting of a new law on hydrocarbons. Under an agreement signed last April between Erbil and Baghdad, the two governments are to jointly manage the energy dossier. But in a country where essential provisions of the Constitution are not respected by the government, how much faith can be placed in current bilateral agreements?
Kurdistan is also facing drought and pollution. The Little Zab river, which rises in the Zagros mountain range in Iranian Kurdistan before entering Iraqi Kurdistan, where it flows into the Dukan dam before joining the Tigris, has been reduced to a trickle by Iran's construction of a large dam along its course, which retains most of the river's water. As a result, several towns in Iraqi Kurdistan, including Qaladizeh, are facing water shortages (see p.30). In Kirkuk, the waters of the Tigris River are polluted by oil spills (see p.39).
On the political front, the Kurds are preparing for the Iraqi provincial elections on December 18, 2023. In the absence of unity, they are running on four lists, notably in the provinces of Kirkuk and Mosul. The Arabs will be represented by three main coalitions, the Turkmens by two lists. In Kirkuk, the Shiite militia Asaib Ahl al-Haq, supported by Iran, wants to oppose the return of the KDP with noisy demonstrations. Since October 16, 2017, when the Iraqi government took control of Kirkuk by force, the local KDP headquarters had been occupied by the Iraqi army.
The Iraqi Prime Minister recently issued a decree authorizing the KDP to return to Kirkuk, where it enjoys a broad popular base, in order to take part in the elections. Shiite militiamen, manipulated by Iran, are opposed to this decision and have erected tents and blocked the road linking Kirkuk to Erbil for a time. There were a few clashes, which were put down by the forces of law and order. In recent years, the Al-Haq militia has carried out numerous attacks against American bases and the Kurdistan Region. The last provincial elections in Kirkuk were held in 2005. The Kurdistan United List won 8 out of 12 seats, and the list's leader, Dr. Najmaldine Karim, was elected governor of Kirkuk, a position he held until October 16, 2017, when his city was occupied by the Iraqi army. Given the significant demographic changes that have taken place since 2017 in this province under Iraqi administration, and the climate of insecurity that is likely to disrupt the holding of free and fair elections, the outcome of the poll remains uncertain.
In the provinces of Duhok, Erbil and Suleimaniyeh forming the Federated Region of Kurdistan, parliamentary elections will be held on February 25, 2024 (see p. 49). They could be coupled with elections for the renewal of provincial councils, which have not been held since 2011.
Turkish drone attacks continued throughout August. On August 6, Turkey carried out a drone strike in the Amadiya district of Duhok governorate, killing a civilian named Alan Ismail and wounding another. Further strikes in the Amadiya district on August 6 and 7 caused extensive damage to civilian property and farmland. Turkish drones also killed one civilian and wounded another in the Chamchamal district of Suleimaniyeh governorate.
On August 12, a Turkish drone struck a vehicle near the Penjwin district, killing three civilians, including a medical student and her father. Initial reports claimed that the vehicle was carrying members of the PKK. However, it later transpired that all the passengers were civilians, originally from Mosul, but living in Duhok. At least 115 civilians have been killed by Turkey in Iraqi Kurdistan since 2015.
As the first anniversary of the death of Kurdish student Jîna Mahsa Amînî and the start of the popular protest movement "Woman, Life, Freedom" approaches, the Iranian authorities are on edge. They are stepping up repression by arresting prominent figures, activists and relatives of those killed by regime forces during the autumn 2022 protests, in order to sow fear and terror among the population. Amnesty International claims that the families of demonstrators killed during the crackdown have been subjected to arbitrary arrest and detention in order to obtain silence and impunity for the fate of their loved ones (see p. 65).
On the other hand, Teheran is seeking a diversionary military intervention in Iraqi Kurdistan to "cleanse the region of terrorists who threaten the security of the Islamic Republic and are fomenting unrest in Iran". This was the message delivered by Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani at a press conference on August 29. The Iranian regime has set a deadline of September 19, "which will not be extended under any circumstances. After this deadline, if Iraq does not respect its commitments, the Iranian government will assume its responsibility to ensure the country's security", he insisted.
This Iranian threat had already been formulated last April during the visit of Iraqi President Latif Rachid to Teheran by his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raissi. Since then, Iraq has installed some fifty surveillance towers and forty cameras all along Iraqi Kurdistan's border with Iranian Kurdistan, a border that passes through high mountain passes and is poorly demarcated. The Kurdish organizations targeted are the Democratic Party of Kurdistan of Iran (PDKI), whose leaders Dr. Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou and Dr. Sadegh Charafkandi were assassinated in Europe by Iranian services in July 1989 and September 1992. The German justice system incriminated "the highest authorities of the Islamic Republic" in the assassination of Dr. Charafkandi and two of his comrades in September 1992 in Berlin, on the sidelines of a meeting of the Socialist International to which they had been invited. There is also the Komala movement and the Kurdistan Freedom Party, which for decades have been refugees in Iraqi Kurdistan, where they pursue political and cultural activities.
In recent years, Iran has repeatedly bombed Iranian Kurdish refugee camps and frequently committed targeted assassinations of Iranian Kurdish activists with impunity.
Iran is now demanding the dismantling of these Kurdish organizations' camps and their expulsion. The Iraqi government of Mohammed Chia al-Soudani, backed by a pro-Iranian parliamentary coalition, is in no position to oppose Iran's demands. However, the Kurdistan government considers that Iranian Kurdish organizations carry out peaceful activities and pose no military threat to Iran, and that Iran therefore has no right to intervene on the territory of a sovereign state. Iran, for its part, invokes the example of Turkey, which for decades has not ceased to intervene in Iraqi Kurdistan in its interminable war against the "PKK terrorists", some of whose units are based on the border between Iraqi, Iranian and Turkish Kurdistan.
Here are the highlights of the repression in August:
On August 5, a Kurdish prisoner, Soheila Mohammadi, held for three years in the prison of the Kurdish town of Ourmia, sewed up her mouth before starting a hunger strike. A mother of one child, she had already attempted suicide a few months ago by stabbing herself in the chest before being saved by fellow inmates to protest against the terrible conditions of detention in Iranian prisons (see p. 50).
According to the NGO Hengaw, in early August Iranian regime forces arrested dozens of protesters in the village of Aqdara, in West Azerbaijan province, and seriously wounded three. The raid on Aqdara began when several Kurdish men gathered outside a gold mine and demanded employment. Iranian security forces and Ilam municipal officials destroyed a Kurdish house, dispersed a small demonstration, wounded three Kurds and arrested six others. The regime also arrested a number of activists across Iranian Kurdistan, including Mohammed Haseli in Sarabbagh, Assad Mohammadi, Massoud and Ibrahim Mirzaie, and Hozan Baba Karimi in Senna, Omed Mazloum in Mahabad, Murad Tajgarodun in Naghadeh, Yassir Noori in Jiwanro, Hussein Chokali. in Ourmia and Haider Qubati in Kermanshah. Finally, the Islamic Revolutionary Courts sentenced Burhan Saedi to two years' imprisonment for "forming groups against national security" in Senna, Bayan Salehian to eight months' imprisonment in Saqqez and Waran Mohammadnejad to one year's imprisonment.
The Iranian regime has begun subjecting women who defy hijab laws to psychiatric treatment. This follows the regime's official reactivation of the "morality police"... In mid-August, the Iranian authorities arrested several Kurdish activists, including Wali Museeni in Murimuri, five environmental activists in Marivan, Aso Abdullahi in Diwandara, Aram Rohi in Saqqez, Poria Ahmadi and the rest of her family in Senna, and 46 demonstrators in Agh Darreh, near Ourmia. According to the Hengaw Organization, the Iranian authorities arrested at least 131 Kurdish citizens in July. Finally, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iranian border guards killed a Kurdish border porter (kolbar) and wounded eight others near Nowsud and Baneh.
In August, forest fires ravaged several forests near Marivan. Local efforts to fight the fires, despite support from humanitarian organizations and volunteers from other towns, were hampered by a lack of aid from the Iranian government. The fires started near the village of Dereveran on August 3, and official media have highlighted the absence of the Iranian government during the current crisis. In fact, some local sources suggested that entities linked to the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) had deliberately set one or more of the fires.
At the end of August, the Iranian regime arrested at least 15 people in Senna, Shabad, Sardasht, Saqqez, Kermanshah, Awadam, Bokan, Marivan, Ilam and Quchan. Among those arrested were three women, including a 16-year-old teenager. At the same time, Iranian courts sentenced several Kurdish demonstrators and activists to prison. Mehdi Ghayas was sentenced to six months' imprisonment in Ilam, Arsalan Mahmudi was sentenced to three years' imprisonment in Mahabad and an activist named Freshta Mansouri was sentenced to six months' imprisonment in Sarbaleh.
On the diplomatic front, the US and Iran reached an agreement in principle to release five Americans held by Iran in exchange for the unfreezing of around $6 billion in Iranian assets in South Korea. Qatar mediated the agreement, which is due to take effect in September. Many Republicans, including Representative Michael McCaul, rejected the deal, but Representative Adam Smith defended the agreement, saying, "This is Iran's money that was in South Korea, so it's not a bounty." The deal has not reduced tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, however, as the US plans to deploy Marines on commercial vessels to prevent the Iranians from seizing it.
Accustomed to recurrent attacks by the Turkish army using drones and long-range artillery and its Syrian mercenaries, and intermittent clashes with ISIS jihadists, Rojava saw violent and deadly clashes in August in the Arab-majority province of Deir ez-Zor, controlled by a council attached to the Syrian Democratic Forces. The hostilities were triggered by the arrest on August 27 of the head of this local military council, Ahmad al-Khabi, also known as Abu Khawla. He was accused of lucrative smuggling activities. He was also accused of independently recruiting over a thousand tribal fighters without SDF supervision and at his own expense.
Abu Khawla's arrest sparked heated tensions with his tribe that eventually degenerated into armed clashes. The Syrian regime and probably also Turkish and Iranian services took the opportunity to turn the mutiny into a conflict between the Kurdish-dominated SDF and Arab tribes. The SDF declared a state of emergency and entered into negotiations with the local Arab tribes, explaining that the aim was to punish a military leader who had behaved like the head of a mafia gang, damaging the SDF's reputation and the security of the region. The sanction was taken after numerous complaints from Arab residents over more than a year, according to Kurdish authorities.
According to a local journalist quoted by AFP (see p. 63) "corrupt commanders felt threatened after Abu Khawla's arrest and tried to turn the situation into a tribal and Arab issue in order to protect themselves".
The SDF launched an operation on August 25 to bolster security in Deir ez-Zor province against E.I. and criminals involved in drug trafficking and arms smuggling. The operation lasted several days and, according to a count reported by AFP, left 22 people dead, including 16 Abu Khawla supporters and 3 members of the FDS, as well as 3 civilians. According to the SDF, order has been restored and calm has returned to the province.
In the same province, on August 10, ISIS attacked a Syrian bus carrying soldiers. "At least 26 soldiers were killed and 11 wounded," according to a report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
ISIS' activities in Syria's rural and desert areas are becoming increasingly frequent and deadly. Despite the end of its "fight" in 2019 and the elimination of four of its successive leaders, ISIS continues to carry out guerrilla operations in both Syria and Iraq.
Here's a chronicle of other highlights of the month in Rojava
On August 2, a ISIS attack in Markada wounded four members of the FDS. A second ISIS attack on August 2 killed an FDS member in the Al Saada region of Hassaké, and a third wounded five Hezbollah members.
On August 3, a Turkish drone targeted a car on the Ali Faro road in Hassaké, seriously wounding at least two civilians... Fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Turkish-backed groups were killed in clashes around Tal Tamer. Finally, a landmine killed four women and a child in a town north of Raqqa.
On August 5, ISIS killed three SDF members with an explosive device on the Raqqa-Khunta road. On August 6, an ISIS cell published leaflets in SDF-controlled Al Tayana, threatening to execute women who did not respect the "Sharia" dress code. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH) has recorded 103 operations by ISIS in northeastern Syria since January 1, 2023. That said, a joint raid by the SDF and the US-led coalition captured an ISIS cell leader in Daman, Deir ez Zor governorate. on August 5.
On August 9, Turkish artillery fired on the village of Shirka, south of the M4 freeway, killing three civilians, including a grandmother and two children. In addition, three people were wounded. All the victims were from the same family. Vedant Patel, spokesman for the US State Department, stressed that no authorization or consent had been granted for the Turkish operations. He called on all parties involved to respect and uphold existing ceasefires. In another incident in Turkish-occupied Afrin, Turkish-backed factions abducted three Kurdish civilians. Two of the abductees were subsequently released after payment of a ransom.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT) and Turkish-backed civilian police had kidnapped four civilians in Turkish-occupied Afrin. SOHR also said that one of the victims, a 48-year-old man, had been taken to a prison in central Afrin and violently tortured by his captors. Another victim was a young man from the Idlib governorate.
On August 15, Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) counter-terrorism units (YAT) neutralized a Daesh official named Ibrahim al Ali, also known as Abu Mujahid, after he refused to surrender in Raqqa. The US-led coalition supported the raid with aerial surveillance. The Kurdistan Regional Government's Counter-Terrorism Group (CTG) also contributed to the operation.
At least one journalist was killed by a Turkish drone near the village of Mazar Shaikh Jabr, on the Qamishli-Amuda road. The person killed is believed to be Najmaddin Faisal Haj Sinan, a journalist with the Jin television station. At least one other person, a journalist, was also injured in the drone attack.
Meanwhile, in response to escalating inflationary pressures in Syria, where the Syrian pound has lost over 80% of its value in just three months, the Autonomous Administration of Northern and Eastern Syria has announced a substantial increase in salaries for its administrative staff and employees. The minimum monthly salary for AANES staff has been raised to $75, while the maximum salary has been adjusted to around $590. This salary adjustment is designed to cope with the deteriorating economic situation and galloping inflation. The dire economic conditions have triggered protests in southern Syria, governed by the Syrian regime, as the cost of essential goods has soared.
The American Disney channel, encouraged by Turkey, had prepared a TV series dedicated to Atatürk to commemorate the centenary of the founding of the Turkish Republic. The series, glorifying "the father of the Turks", was to be broadcast in the USA and around the world. However, in the face of an outcry from the descendants of the Turkish dictator's victims (Armenians, Greeks, Kurds), the channel was forced to retropedalise and abandon this global broadcast of Turkish nationalist propaganda. This decision provoked virulent reactions from Turkey's leaders, who threatened to impose sanctions against Disney. According to the vice-president of the ruling AKP party, Omer Çelik, "it's a pity that a US-based platform succumbed to pressure from the Armenian lobby and cancelled the Ataturk series without broadcasting it". He considers "this attitude disrespectful of the values of the Republic and of our nation". To calm tempers and no doubt protect its Turkish market, Disney assured us that this was a "change of strategy" and that "the series will be shown in two parts in cinemas at the end of the year". Small consolation, since the few cinemas likely to show the film will have to think twice about the risk of protests. Atatürk thus finds himself in a Disney cupboard.
Turkey also had to forego the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Treaty of Lausanne, which enshrined the new Turkish state and its borders in international law. The Palais Rumine, where the treaty was signed, was unavailable "for renovations", and the co-signatories of the treaty were no doubt also reluctant to show off for Erdogan.
Disenchantment with the Turkish regime is also evident in the Czech Republic, where on August 15 the mayor of a Prague district rejected the Turkish ambassador's request to erect a statue of Ataturk in a park in his municipality (see p. 14-15). Cuba and Australia are among the few countries that honor the memory of Turkey's founder with statues.
That said, the Turkish president doesn't seem to care what's going on abroad. Intervening at every turn in the Turkish media, he wants to persuade people that the 21st century will be "the Turkish century". His Indian compatriot Modi also speaks of the "Indian century", and of course President Xi Jin Ping is mobilizing his people and his army to ensure that China becomes the world's leading power and that the 21st century is the century of Chinese predominance. We don't know whether the Turks are aware of their competitors' ambitions, or whether they believe their president's nonsense.
Critical voices are prosecuted for "terrorism" or "treason". For example, Kurdish activists who in October 2014 protested against Turkey's complicity with the Daech jihadists besieging the Kurdish town of Kobanî have been on trial for years. The 29th hearing in this trial took place in August. 108 politicians from the People's Democratic Party (HDP), including 18 imprisoned, are on trial for solidarity vigils with the Kurdish resistance fighters of Kobanî. For the Turkish judiciary, this constitutes "support for the terrorist organization PKK". The Turkish president, who has publicly wished for Kobanî to fall into the hands of the bloodthirsty terrorist organization Daech, has set himself up as the main accuser of the Kurdish militants and is calling for them to be sentenced to heavy penalties, even if the case is empty.
Threatened with dissolution, the HDP, which, with 6 million votes and around 60 deputies, was the second largest opposition group in the Turkish Parliament, is preparing for this announced end. It held its 4th extraordinary congress and elected its two co-chairmen, Sultan Ozcan and Cahit Kurtacak, who are to become the liquidators of the party, which is being replaced by the Green Left Party (Yesil Sol Parti), represented in Parliament by some sixty deputies.
In addition, several Kurdish NGOs met in the Kurdish capital Diyarbakir to discuss a project to transform Diyarbakir's prison No. 5, of sinister memory, into a human rights museum, commemorating the long history of torture and abuse suffered by Kurds in Turkish prisons (see Mehdi Zana, Prison No. 5, éditions Arlea, Paris 1995).
In August 2014 Daech forces had invaded Mount Sinjar (Shengal in Kurdish), the historic home of the Yezidis in Iraqi Kurdistan. The men were arrested and often shot on the spot without further trial, as considered by the fanatical Islamists to be heretical infidels whose death, according to their version of Sharia (Islamic law), is licit (halal). Women and girls, for their part, were taken prisoner and considered as "spoils of war" to be shared between the jihadists. Some, forcibly converted to Islam, were offered as "wives" to jihadists, while others were returned to slave status and sold as such on slave markets. Despite the defeats inflicted on the Islamic State first in 2017 by the Peshmergas, then in 2019 by Syrian Kurdish fighters and despite all the efforts made by a committee funded and commissioned by the President of Kurdistan for the redemption and liberation of these women turned slaves. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 2,700 of them are still missing.
It is this immense human tragedy that to this day has not been redressed by the Iraqi government, which while acknowledging the genocide suffered by the Yezidi population, has not undertaken any justice and reparation initiatives for this population it has failed to defend. No program to rebuild devastated Yezidi towns and villages has yet been announced, and over 200,000 Yezidis are still displaced to Kurdistan in dilapidated camps, or to Europe as refugees.
It is these Yezidi refugees in Europe, supported by Kurdish diaspora organizations and human rights NGOs, who are trying to obtain justice before European and international institutions. Thanks to this mobilization, the German justice system was the first to recognize on November 30, 2021, by condemning a former fighter of the Islamic State, Taha Al-Jumail, for "acts of genocide and crimes against humanity in Iraq" against the Yezidi population, a qualification confirmed in January 2023 by the German Federal Court of Justice. In January the Bundestag recognized the genocide perpetrated by Daesh against the Yezidis. Since then, other parliaments and international organizations have recognized this genocide.
Following the German precedent, on August 1 the UK officially recognized that "the jihadist group Islamic State committed acts of genocide against the Yezidis in 2014". This recognition was announced on the occasion of commemorations held in London to mark the 9th anniversary of the jihadists' invasion of Mount Sinjar. It was welcomed by the entire Yezidi community, and beyond by all Kurds. The figurehead of this struggle, Nadia Mourad, former victim of Daech and Nobel Peace Prize winner, hailed "this important gesture" and expressed the hope that "the UK will now seek justice for the victims" by prosecuting jihadists born on British territory.
According to AFP, this is the fifth time the UK has officially recognized genocide, following the Holocaust, Rwanda, Srebrenica in Bosnia, and the genocide perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
To date, the dramatic plight of the civilian population in the Kurdish territories of Syria under Turkish occupation has hardly elicited any serious reaction from Western countries. This is despite the warnings issued by Kurdish and international NGOs, and despite the damning testimonies, often accompanied by videos.
In 2020, the United Nations International Independent Investigation Commission (IIC) on the Syrian conflict denounced "the abuses committed by Syrian pro-Turkish armed groups against the Kurdish population in territories now under Ankara's control". It considered that Turkey could be "held criminally responsible for the grave violations committed by its allies in the Syrian National Army".
Following this damning report, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, called on Turkey to "immediately launch an impartial, transparent and independent investigation into incidents involving armed groups under Ankara's effective control".
The Turkish authorities categorically refused. "We entirely reject unfounded allegations against Syrian opposition groups operating on the ground to combat terrorism and enable the return of refugees", replied the Turkish Foreign Minister. And the UN declined to go any further.
In July 2022, an investigation carried out by the Syrian Justice Accountability Centre (SJAC) revealed, among other things, the criminal practices that enable the leader of the Suleiman Shah brigade, Mohammad Hussein al-Jassem, to generate more than $30 million a year. According to the survey, the militia carries out crimes such as "raping, harassing and kidnapping the inhabitants" of Afrin canton, which has been under Turkish occupation since March 2018. It forces them to "abandon their homes or pay large ransoms for the return of their property or family members". The scheme is said to generate tens of millions of dollars a year in ransom payments, each reaching between $1,000 and $25,000. According to the SJAC, the militia leader Hamza holds 65 million dollars in Turkish banks. In its report, SJAC points out that "the exploitation of land confiscated from Kurdish inhabitants of Afrin enables the militia leader to sell olives via intermediaries to the Türkiye Tarim Kredi Kooperatifleri (ACC) agricultural cooperative, under the authority of the Turkish Ministry of Agriculture, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). ACC then refines the oil and resells it to Turkish exporters, before selling it worldwide under a Turkish label".
Following this avalanche of revelations, the US Treasury Department announced on August 17 that it had just sanctioned two pro-Turkish Syrian armed groups, the Suleiman Shah Brigade and the Hamza Division, as well as their leaders, for their involvement in "serious human rights abuses against people residing in the Afrin region". The Suleiman Shah Brigade, the vast majority of whom are Turkmen, is financed and armed by Turkey, which has also used it in Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh. It is accused by the US Treasury of "subjecting the population of Afrin to kidnapping and extortion". It has "targeted the Kurdish residents of Afrin, many of whom are subjected to harassment, kidnapping or other abuses until they are forced to abandon their homes or pay high ransoms for the return of their property or family members" says the US Treasury. The Hamza Division, which has also served in Libya and Karabakh, is "involved in kidnapping, property theft and torture (...) and also operates detention centers in which it holds those it has kidnapped for extended periods".
The sanctions targeting these two militias and their principal leaders fall under Presidential Executive Order (EO) 13894: "All assets and interests in assets" of the targeted entities and individuals "that are in the United States, or are in the possession or control of U.S. persons shall be blocked and reported to the U.S. Treasury" (...). In addition, non-U.S. persons who engage in transactions with sanctioned individuals may be subject to sanctions".
The US Treasury has also placed the company al-Safir Oto, owned by the brother of the head of the Hamza Division, under sanctions. Through its centers in Istanbul and Gazi Antep, al-Safir Oto enables the proceeds of the criminal practices of Hamza Division leaders to be invested in Turkey.
The American decision has symbolic significance. It has the merit of recognizing and denouncing some of the crimes perpetrated by these two militias, which are subservient to the Turkish army and controlled by Ankara. These are war crimes committed in territories under Turkish occupation, for which the occupying power, Turkey, should be held accountable.
The US administration fails to directly incriminate its "strategic NATO ally". It attacks its mercenaries, who in all likelihood have neither property nor wealth in the USA. As the SJAC report points out, their fortunes are invested in Turkish banks, against which the US Treasury has announced no sanctions, nor against the Turkish agricultural cooperatives, under the Turkish Ministry of Agriculture, which buy from these criminal militias the thousands of tons of olives confiscated from their Kurdish owners in Afrin, refine and market them.
On August 3, the US military, following an anti-Daesh operation, reiterated "its concerns about the continued recruitment and payment of fighters, some of whom were former members of the EI" by most of the Ankara-backed groups. In July 2021, Washington had sanctioned the Syrian militia Ahrar ach-Charkya, which in 2019 executed Kurdish politician Hevrin Khalaf, for its recruitment of former members of Daech. These sanctions remained symbolic and inconsequential, ignored by Ankara.
Monsignor Raban al-Qas, Chaldean bishop of Duhok and a leading figure in Kurdistan's Christian community, died on Monday August 28 in Duhok at the age of 74.
Born in 1949 in the village of Kane in the Amadia district, Raban al-Qas was a leading figure among Kurdistan's Christians, and highly respected among Muslims too. A champion of the peaceful coexistence of religions, a lover of Kurdistan and attached to its pluralistic cultural and religious traditions, this good man was also a builder.
In the 1990s, he played an important role in the reconstruction of Christian villages destroyed by Saddam Hussein's dictatorship (see Domitille Lagourgue's book "Espoir, j'écris ton nom", published by Jean-Claude Lattès, 1997). In Duhok, he also created an emblematic secular international high school for children of all origins and denominations, where, alongside Kurdish and Aramaic, Arabic, English and French are taught. A polyglot, mastering French, English and Italian in addition to Arabic, Aramaic and Kurdish, he never hesitated to take up his pilgrim's staff to plead in Europe, notably France, Italy and the Vatican, the cause of his community and that of an independent Kurdistan, which he so earnestly desired.
Appreciated by Pope John Paul II, who loved his hymns in Aramaic, the language of Christ, he was also well introduced to his successors, notably Francis. He was one of the architects of the excellent relations between the Vatican and Kurdistan, which were crowned by the Pope's visit to Erbil on March 7, 2021.
The Kurdish Institute had enjoyed close and cordial relations of friendship and cooperation with him since the 1990s. His death is a great loss for the Christians of Kurdistan and for the Kurdish people. The President and Prime Minister of Kurdistan, as well as personalities from all walks of life, paid him a heartfelt tribute.
In accordance with his last wishes, his funeral took place in his native village of Kane.
