Sheri Laizer | Exclusive to iKurd.net

Former investment banker for US bank, Morgan Stanley, one time journalist for the BBC and ITN Granada, multi-millionaire security official, Jonathan Powell is linked with bringing Abu Mohamed al-Jolani, the former Al Qaeda affiliate leader to power through back channel negotiations approved by MI6, and the British SAS.

Jonathan Powell, as Chief of Staff to former Labour Prime Minister, Tony Blair, (1997 to 2007), was linked to attempts to sex up the dossier against Saddam Hussein as a pretext for the war on Iraq.

As I wrote in an article on the Blair cabinet’s false ’45 minutes’ claim against Iraq and the untimely death of former weapons inspector, Dr. David Kelly:

“Journalist Richard Norton-Taylor had observed in the Guardian in September 2003, “There is a dark cabal around Tony Blair” – perhaps the same ‘dark actors’ that Dr Kelly referred to in his email? He observed, “What has already emerged – but been largely ignored – from the Hutton inquiry is the existence of a dark, almost Jacobean, cabal at the core of the Blair administration…It is a group of powerful, unelected people few would have heard of were it not for the evidence given to Hutton: Sir David Manning, the prime minister’s foreign policy adviser; Sir David Omand, his security coordinator; and John Scarlett, chairman of the joint intelligence committee. Until he resigned, the group also included Alastair Campbell, Blair’s communications director. Indeed, he was a prime mover in establishing this inner circle. 3

Norton-Taylor didn’t explicitly refer to Jonathan Powell in this context although he was central to the decision-making, but added: “Above all, they allowed themselves to be embraced by Campbell and opened the door to the tainting of intelligence by politics.”

“You could hear it in their calculating treatment of Kelly who, in Scarlett’s chilling words, should have been subjected to a “security style interview.”

“It seems that he was”…I had opined.

Syria is just a repeat performance. It is immaterial to British interests how many Syrians pay the price of having a jihadist for a president.

Talking with terrorists: Enter Jonathan Powell

In 2014, Jonathan Powell had been the UK Conservative Party leader, David Cameron’s special envoy to Libya – another disaster zone owing to the Arab Spring and foreign interference. Powell also took on negotiating roles in Northern Ireland, North Korea, Afghanistan, with FARC in Colombia and ETA in the Basque country, among other assignments. He went on a decade later to be appointed by Labour PM, Keir Starmer as his ‘Special Security Advisor. Now, the secrets about British intelligence interference in Syria and Powell’s significant role are out in the open.

Jonathan Powell brokered meetings between MI6 and Abu Mohamed al-Jolani (Ahmed al-Shara’a) while working as Chief Executive of his NGO, Inter Mediate. His counterpart was still designated as a terrorist as the leader of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham. The National News claims Powell he had first met al-Sharaa back in 2015. 4

The conservative mainstream UK newspaper, the Telegraph ran a heading on 21 November 2025, Starmer’s security chief ran secret backchannel to Syrian terror group. Tony Diver, the Telegraph’s associate political editor claimed that Powell’s Inter Mediate had been founded back in 2011. Powell ‘has had a significant presence in Syria since 2012.’

If so, this was when the Syrian conflict was just a year old and dressed up by the mainstream media for Western audiences as a revolution for democracy against the dictator, Bashar al-Assad. As I wrote at the time it was very clear from early footage that the bearded jihadists crying “AllahuAkhbar” when they launched their attacks were not democracy seeking rebels.

Powell was indeed ‘given responsibility (by MI6) for establishing contact between the intelligence agency and HTS in 2023 yet he had already been active there to sculpt a path for UK interests.

British officials reportedly obtained legal advice that cleared Powell to arrange contact with these terrorist groups on behalf of the UK, “using a defence in counter-terror legislation that permits “genuinely benign” meetings with terrorists, according to sources familiar with the situation.

Al Majalla claimed Powell first met Al Sharaa in May 2021.5 His organisation had been overlapping with another British NGO, the White Helmets, massively funded by the UK Foreign Office with a murky reputation for staging chemical weapons scenes as evidence against Bashar al-Assad’s government. Its CEO, James Le Mesurier had not lived to see the fruits of this labour and met a nasty end in Istanbul in 2019. See, The West’s ‘Red Line’ Fiction: Think Tanks, Jihadists and the White Helmets.

US fingers in the Syrian pie

Jonathan Powell teamed up with Robert Ford, the former US ambassador to Syria (2011-2014).

“Olive-branch carrying peaceful protestors!”

Back in 2011, Ford had visited the Sunni stronghold of Hama and stirred up further resentment against Assad He posted a tirade on Facebook in English and Arabic, saying “how ironic that the Syrian Government lets an anti-U.S. demonstration proceed freely while their security thugs beat down olive branch-carrying peaceful protesters elsewhere.”

He declared, “Hama and the Syrian crisis is not about the U.S. at all. This is a crisis the Syrian people are in the process of solving. It is a crisis about dignity, human rights, and the rule of law.” 7

Ford would later claim that he had met al-Sharaa personally and that al-Sharaa had refused to apologise “for terror attacks his group had committed in Iraq and Syria, which killed scores of civilians between 2017 and 2024, “He claims to have met al-Sharaa twice, once in Idlib under the group’s control in 2023. 8

Powell invited Ford into Inter Mediate to help their Syrian influence project. But al Sharaa denied he had met Ford under such circumstances claiming he only met international delegations. Other accounts say that Ford travelled with Inter Mediate in March and September 2023 and again in January 2024. Powell had taken up his post with Starmer’s government as his National Security Advisor after standing down as the chair of Inter Mediate just six days before the fall of Syria. They knew of course how things were headed and had helped set the conquest in motion.

(Sir) Richard Moore who was head of MI6 at the time of the backchannel operations made similar public revelations from the British Embassy in Istanbul in his farewell speech. 9 He has been a staunch supporter of autocratic Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, including backing him over the 2016 (false flag) coup.

Moore has also acknowledged that the relationship that had begun with al-Sharaa in May 2023 opened the door to the UK being able “to return to the country within weeks” of al-Sharaa seizing power: He did not refer to Powell or Inter Mediate, although sources said Powell’s organisation effectively functioned as an unofficial branch of the UK intelligence services in Damascus. 10

Wikileaks had revealed that Powell had spoken with Hillary Clinton’s office as early as 2012 over his ‘starting work in Syria’ operating closely with the UK Foreign Office and MI6. Her campaign advisor, Sid Blumenthal emailed her saying Powell had ‘initiated some very interesting work below the radar.’ Powell’s email, reproduced for her, added:

‘We work closely with FCO, NSC and SIS in London but this is our first visit to the US to talk about what we do. I have a meeting with Bill Burns, an old friend, but would be grateful for guidance on who else I should see in DC and in New York. I will be in Washington from 18 to 21 March and then in New York from 21-23 March. I will be accompanied by my deputy, Arabella Phillimore, ex UN and ex FCO (Afghanistan).

These manoeuvres so early into the Syrian conflict confirm Bashar al-Assad’s claim that foreign forces were trying to take over his country.

The Wikipedia leaks emails then revealed that visiting Washington the same year, Powell met Hillary Clinton, her deputy secretary, Bill Burns, (who later became director of the CIA), and her adviser Jake Sullivan, who later served as Joe Biden’s national security adviser. He is remembered for his famous 2012 claim that ‘Al Qaeda is on our side in Syria.’

Powell and the plotted demise of the PKK and PYD – A boost to the KDP

Jonathan Powell remains in office as the Labour government’s National Security Advisor (although speaking of imminent departure on health grounds). He was also fielded to engage the PKK and PYD on their disarmament in favour of Erdoğan’s ‘terror Free’ Turkey policy that nowhere uses the word ‘Kurd.’ 12 Powell is said by Al Majalla to have been in Istanbul when PKK captive leader, Abdullah Öcalan spoke at a state organised news conference to declare that the PKK was to lay down its arms.13

The National reported that “working with the UK-based think tank Democratic Progress Institute, Powell and his team developed a program drawing on lessons from Northern Ireland.

The team briefed MPs from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). An unnamed source said that “The American thinking was that one day there would be a withdrawal from Syria. When that day came, they did not want the Kurds in Syria to enter into conflict with Turkey. They wanted to prepare the ground for that.” 14

The Biden administration had reportedly reached out to Erdoğan to propose a deal with the PYD which then extended into a so-called wider ‘peace’ process. The UK became involved in these talks, and Powell’s company, Inter Mediate, also had long-standing contact with the PYD as well as Turkey under a state assignment dating back to 2017, and with the Turkish Kurds in focus with Erdoğan’s 2013 peace posturing.

Kurdish and Turkish MPs had travelled to the UK and Ireland that year looking at ways of resolving the long running Kurdish problem. It was not sincere on either the UK or Erdoğan’s ‘ part but aimed at ending Kurdish opposition to Turkification historically posited as ‘integration.’

According to the Kurdish “authorities” running Iraqi Kurdistan via the enduring duopoly, “Powell reaffirmed London’s commitment to supporting Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, praising the Region’s role in promoting peace and stability. The statement noted that the meeting underscored shared priorities in strengthening cooperation and addressing common security concerns.”

Wither headed?

In his most recent position as two UK Labour Party PMs, National Security Advisor, (successively to Keir Starmer), and Tony Blair’s decade-long Chief of Staff, Powell had to step down from Inter Mediate that he had co-founded with Martin Griffiths – the former UN Special Envoy to Yemen and UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator until 2024 when al-Sharaa was helped to power.

Afrique-Asie in a French translation of a Vanessa Beeley article spoke critically of the role Jonathan Powell and Inter Mediate had played also claiming that his NGO benefited from GBP 4 million funding from the UK Foreign Office between 2011-2020. 15 The White Helmets also benefitted and continues to benefit from massive funding in the name of relief and training etc. while its deeper political role was masked.

Inter Mediate remains in the Presidential Palace with Ahmed al-Sharaa

Just four days before al-Sharaa seized power, Claire Hajaj was appointed as Inter Mediate’s new executive director. She has a background in the UN Security Council’s Counter Terrorism Committee from the period leading up to the war against Iraq. Haaj then worked with the UN Special Representative for Iraq following the US invasion during the peak of the violent backlash by various resistance forces the occupying parties chose ever to denigrate as an ‘insurgency’. It was in fact a legitimate response by Iraqis to the war unleashed upon them.

Long term projects director in Inter Mediate’s Damascus setting is someone named Lucy Stuart, credited by her organisation as speaking Arabic and Farsi. 16 She is reported to be advising another former US-designated terrorist, Asaad Hassan al-Shibani – a co-founder of al-Nusra.

Stuart is said to have written for Al Arabiya’s London bureau during the Syrian conflict, but I could only find one article with her name to it on search engines. That article is entirely based on citations from an Amnesty International report accusing the Assad government of severe human rights abuses back in July 2011. 17 The final citation from their report reads: “However, Mr. Luther concludes that despite President Bashar Al Assad’s talk of reform, there is little evidence so far that the Syrian authorities will respond to anything but concrete international measures.”

Lucy Stuart is now dubiously credited with coaching al-Shibani for his meeting with Tony Blair at Davos of January 22, 2025. See the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change video.

Foreign fingers

Accounts filed for Inter Mediate with the Charity Commission in 2025 reveal that its assets rose to £1,625,316 from £668,745 the previous year. The number of its employees increased dramatically from two to 13 people, and it had adopted an investment plan of up to £1.75 million over five years exceeding its fundraising targets. It had profited from a “greater commitment from the [Foreign Office] through a new partnership agreement with the Office of Conflict and Stabilisation.” 18

Jonathan Powell’s elder brother is none other than Lord Charles Powell, a former Conservative and administrator of the Said Foundation established by British-Syrian national, Wafic Said. Said soon travelled to the seat of al-Jolani once he seated himself in the Presidential Palace in Damascus.

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former British Army officer and an expert on bio-chemical weapons was also immediately seen to be present in Damascus after the seizure of power by HTS. He visited the new Ministry of Health and further promoted the role of the White Helmets ‘incubated’ by MI6 and the CIA. He wrote glowingly of the new regime for the Telegraph.

Al Sharaa is now ‘the President’, not an interim president, fully endorsed by those that helped put him there. “ The Syrian president was in London this week, and he is an example of how regime change should happen: from within, but with just enough external support to tip the balance.

According to Russia Today, I had a hand in Assad’s downfall. That’s nonsense, of course. If I did play even a small role, I’d take quiet satisfaction in it. But the truth is, the fall of Assad was the work of Syrians themselves, groups like the White Helmets, the Idlib Health Directorate, and countless other ordinary citizens who laid the groundwork for change over many brutal years…” 19

Underlining is my emphasis.

Ordinary Syrians? Well!

Emerald Solutions is also named by anti-establishment reporter, Vanessa Beeley as yet another British military/mercenary group backing al-Sharaa in the ‘new’ Syria.

In October 2025, Declassifed UK, another investigative news website revealed how: “Keir Starmer’s special representative to Syria, Ann Snow, met defence minister Murhaf Abu Qasra in Damascus. This followed a meeting between Qasra and Britain’s chief military adviser in the Middle East, Vice Admiral Edward Ahlgren, in July:

“The meetings indicate the UK is deepening relations with Syrian military forces that took power in Damascus in December last year, overthrowing the regime of Bashar Assad which had ruled since 2000. Snow posted that her meeting with Qasra was “to exchange views on the Syrian army’s internal reform and restructuring and the evolving security situation including in the north east and Sweida.” 20

Human Rights Watch – A Counter View of the new regime

Despite all the gloss, a Human Rights Watch report dated September 23, 2025 headed, “Are you Alawi?” Identity-based Killings during Syria’s Transition documented how just two weeks before Snow’s visit: “government forces, comprising Defense and Interior Ministry units, alongside government-aligned armed groups and armed volunteers swept through Alawi-majority neighborhoods, towns, and villages in Tartous, Latakia, and Hama governorates leaving behind torched homes, piled bodies, mass graves, and broken communities.

The answer to one question repeated during methodical house-to-house raids and before brutal executions often determined whether you lived or died: “Are you Alawi?”…Interviews with fighters and volunteers reveal that men unaffiliated with the security forces were actively recruited, armed, organized, and deployed alongside formal units by Defense Ministry representatives… Efforts to vet fighters and commanders lagged, allowing previously unaccountable units to rebrand as state forces and act with impunity. 21

Last laugh

British, American, French, German, Turkish and Iraqi Kurdish leaders have all shaken hands with the jihadist leader whose philosophy is expressed in Islamist utterances at street level they calmly choose to ignore.

Posters and messages discriminate between fundamentalist Muslims and the ‘infidels.’

For example, a recent decision issued by the Municipality of Douma prohibits the entry of a groom to the hall where the females are celebrating the wedding under a legal penalty of accountability/guilt. The bride must only celebrate with women and the groom elsewhere with men.

The Brothers are laughing up their sleeves.

The post Stealing Syria: The Dirty Hands of British Infiltration appeared first on iKurd News.

The Rape Of Raqqa: How The City Became The Capital Of ISIS In Al Sham (The Levant).

Sheri Laizer | Exclusive to iKurd.net

One would do well to ask what the fight against ISIS was ultimately for and how much it cost in blood as well as economically – for it to be surrendered to Ahmed al-Sharaa’s Salafists anew.

Sheri Laizer, September 28, 2026

Introduction

This analysis is not intended to be exhaustive but to provide an overall digest focused on Raqqa’s suffering since the Arab Spring began to ignite in Syria on March 15, 2011.

With the passing of time, it is too easy to overlook and/or forget key developments from the period in question and view them instead through the distorted lens of hindsight. By the time the ‘Arab Spring’ touched Syria, it had gathered enormous popular momentum as a springboard for the overthrow of potentates too long in power that had failed to deliver on promises of change.

Demands of demonstrators focused on decentralisation, revenue sharing, democratic openings, human rights and societal benefits beyond the privileges enjoyed by the ruling establishment and the structures of governance largely dependent on patronage, and nepotism.

At the outset of the Arab Spring in Syria, the demands were much the same, but the movement was swiftly infiltrated and then overtaken by Islamic extremists. Their goal was the establishment of an Islamic state and the imposition of Sharia law, not a civil state. The call to jihad was not a beckoning to help create any kind or liberal democracy or achieve social equalities. It aimed at the overthrow of the secular order.

Syria had been secular throughout the Assad dynasty. Even the fierce crushing of the 1980s rebellions in Homs and Hama had been about ensuring the Muslim Brotherhood did not gain traction as it was doing in Egypt – its erstwhile partner in the short-lived United Arab Republic (UAR – February 22, 1958- September 28, 1961).

Egypt had been sliding into Islamic terrorism under the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1980s threatening its tourism-based economy. The revolt in Hama of February 2, 1983, was launched by the Muslim Brotherhood in the Sunni majority city. Brotherhood commandos attacked Ba’ath government institutions, party offices and military personnel. The army fought the Brothers for almost three weeks leaving much of the town destroyed and between 10,000 – 40,000 people killed and disappeared.

The rebellion was put down with extreme force and the secular government then carried on as before. Although now, the Assad dynast is too often referred to as ‘Alawite’, religion and sect were not prevailing influences. Bashar al-Assad was highly educated, Westernised, and married to Asma Fawaz al-Assad, of Sunni origin but born to professional Syrians, her father a diplomat and her mother a cardiologist, living in London. Their children’s upbringing was secular and academic.

Bashar had come to power unwillingly in the year 2000. His late brother, Basel, had been groomed for the role but had been killed when his fast car wrapped itself around a tree in January 1994. Political billboards before his death had shown Hafez al-Assad flanked by his two eldest sons.

At the time of Basel’s demise, Bashar was training as an ophthalmologist in London whereas his brother was part of the security apparatus running the country. When Bashar was named successor, he brought optimism over technological reform and a short-lived Damascus Spring ensued, long forgotten ever since as the promises withered like blossom in the heat of the sun.

Basel would most likely have maintained military power. So too, their youngest brother, Maher, already part of the military. The least politically involved brother, Majd, was never part of state or military affairs, and their sister, Bushra, a trained pharmacist was married off to the former Chief of Staff in the consolidation of family power. That said, no member of the ruling elite exhibited any religious sympathies in public. Religion and state were kept separate, and faith remained a private matter.

The Arab Spring was swiftly hijacked by religious extremists taking advantage of the popular momentum for democratic change. Democratic values are being trampled underfoot by the ‘new’ regime.

Raqqa

Syria’s 6^th largest city, Raqqa, was a bustling place that sits astride the Euphrates River, some 80 km south of the Turkish border. Turkish acquiescence in the filtration of would-be jihadists throughout the conflict played a highly significant role in the territorial gains ISIS (and other jihadist groups) enjoyed at the time.

In November 2011, eight months into the wider revolt, Bashar al-Assad had paid a comfortable visit to Raqqa and received the support of the sheikhs from the 14 major clans who were paid handsomely. However, that support eroded soon after the militias moved into the city who also paid the Sheikhs for support. An article written retrospectively recalled the previous warnings:

Assad led the Eid prayer, then listened to a sermon by Sheikh Abdul Azim Shekho at Raqqa’s Rehab al-Nour mosque. Shekho delivered a political sermon exhorting Assad and the people of Syria to resist the same international intervention that had “destroyed” Iraq, “burned” Libya, and split Sudan into two states. He then turned to Assad: “The secret is to go forward with all the people behind you,” he urged. “God will guide your footsteps.”¹⁰ Shekho, a Sufi, would be murdered by ISIS in Raqqa two and a half years after those remarks…¹

Raqqa city lies on both banks of the river. It had been a Hellenistic, Roman, then Byzantian city before becoming the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate under Harun al-Rashid between 796 and 809 CE after he moved the capital from Baghdad in 796. It developed from a twin city, Rafiqa.

Their strength largely arose through Raqqa’s proximity to the Byzantine frontier. He cultivated strong relations with the rulers of the Byzantine Empire and Charlemagne’s Frankish empire yet still undertook military campaigns against Byzantium to secure the borders of the Caliphate and exert dominion across the region.²

The ancient walls of the Abbasid stronghold remained largely intact like surviving structures of the same period in Iraq. One of the Raqqa gates is named the Baghdad Gate – Bab al-Baghdad. The distance to Baghdad, the city of Harun al-Rashid is 858 km.

Raqqa had a population of over 220,000 people at the beginning of the new millennium according to the 2004 census. Although the majority belonged to Arab tribes from within a Sunni historical tradition, Turkmen, Kurds, Circassians and Christian Armenians also lived there as in other large cities in the Levant and Middle East. Numerous Armenians were descendants of the families that had fled Turkish genocide in 1915. The Arab Ujayli tribe exhibited great tolerance, and compassion towards them and supported their need for asylum.

The Assyrian Christians were also part of the diversity – a pluralism swiftly extinguished by the extremist ideology of the Islamist militias that rapidly imposed all manner of restraints and demanded taxes (jisya) from them. Their churches were vandalised or taken over to function as ISIS headquarters and prisons.

Western journalists were also kidnapped, ransomed, or tortured and several killed by the FSA, ISIS, Ahrar al-Sham and al-Nusra. In previous articles I have cited the testimony of Theo Padnos, an Arabic speaking American writer and reporter held and tortured by Al Sharaa and his men for almost two years, including a very harsh stint in the group’s Raqqa torture chambers.

Unlike other Western prisoners and hostages whose paths he crossed inside Syria, a ransom (for an undivulged figure) eventually secured his liberty from al-Nusra. Others were not so lucky. His account is delivered in harrowing detail in his book, Blindfold, published after his return to freedom.³

Kayla Mueller

American aid worker, Kayla Mueller, became the toy of al-Baghdadi as attested by her fellow hostages and even al-Baghdadi’s first wife, Umm Sayyaf, who claimed the rapes were love. In fact, Mueller had become just another sex slave. Al Bagdhadi’s widow was charged in Iraqi custody for her part in the crimes the group committed. Mueller had been kidnapped from Aleppo in August 2013 and was killed in captivity during airstrikes on Raqqa in February 2015.⁴ ISIS attributed the strike to Jordan, which naturally it rebutted.

The fall of Raqqa to jihadist groups

The city itself had first fallen on March 4, 2013, to armed anti-government forces that were increasingly being taken over by jihadist groups. Most of the Islamist fighters came from outside the area and originated from Hama and Idlib and were concentrated in the ranks of Ahrar al-Sham.⁶

The Turkish-backed misnomer Free Syrian Arm (FSA) and Jabhat al-Nusra under Abu Mohamed al-Jolani’s command also surged into the area, sometimes co-operating with each other, at other times seeking ultimate dominion. The democratic opposition was swiftly taken over by the jihadists. Al Nusra set up a Sharia court in the sports centre, flying its black banners.⁷

Al Nusra fighters clad in black patrolled the streets, smashed alcohol in two Christian owned shops and consigned the former governor to prison taking over the Governor’s Palace, and the city’s institutions.⁸ The radical Egyptian cleric, originally of Turkmen origin, Sheikh al-Dhahabi, (Hani Dahab) once an ISIS mufti, who now promotes Niqab for female students and employees, was brought in to preside over the court and lead Friday prayers under al-Nusra after defecting from ISIS. ⁹

A Telegraph report from May 12, 2013, once opined of al-Nusra:

Their new-found power is such that it is changing international calculations over the conflict. After first being discouraged from action by their presence in rebel ranks, Britain now has a revised diplomatic strategy.

David Cameron put it to Russia’s president Vladimir Putin on Friday and will discuss it this week with a nervous President Obama in Washington.

Mr Cameron’s officials now feel Jabhat al-Nusra has to be defeated by actively supporting the less militant rebels, including with arms. Many of Jabhat’s rival militias are being marginalised in cities like Raqqa across the north. On Tuesday, Britain will seek to have Jabhat al-Nusra added to an official list of sanctions at the United Nations.

In taking Raqqa two months ago al-Qaeda achieved its greatest coup in the war to date: it was the first provincial capital to fall outright to the rebels, and allowed Jabhat to assume a leadership role over a large swathe of north-eastern Syria, to the Iraqi border…

Part of it is money. Jabhat al-Nusra has always been well-funded compared to other militias – most people assume due to wealthy backers in the Gulf, though few have been able to track down the lines of the money supply…¹⁰

This is the man that was welcomed to the UK to address the government’s Chatham House think tank last year.

Radicalised rulership

After al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham formed a pragmatic alliance having gained military control of the city early in 2013, their fighters increasingly used the city’s resources for themselves paying local tribes for support just as the Assad dynasty had done. Some of the tribes had supported the government all through the opening of the civil war but the extremists imposed Sharia law by force and through fear but did little to help or protect the local people whose numbers swelled with incoming IDPs to as many as 800,000 people.¹¹

They seized control of the adjoining oilfields in Deir Ez Zour selling enough for cash.¹² They smuggled the town’s goods across to Turkey for profit, stripping the factories, recalled a witness to the Telegraph’s reporter, David Rose.¹³ Members of the Farouq Brigade (Liwa al-Farouq) from Homs were present along with the Lions of the Caliphate Battalion and Ahfad al-Rasoul, all in pursuit of an Islamic state.

The Farouq Brigade ran the border crossing gates with Turkey including at Tal Abyad. More than 70 groups operated across the country, several composed almost entirely of foreign fighters including Saudis, Chechens, Uzbeks, diverse north Africans and mixed brigades.¹⁴ On the government side, Hezbollah and the Iraqi Shi’a Resistance (Hashd and independent militia) groups were equally committed to victory within a Shi’a crescent alliance.

The jihadists had operated an aid and supplies corridor through the border crossing with Turkey at Tal Abyad. Turkey closed the border gate in 2014 from the Turkish side at Akçakale. The Turks had partially opened the border crossing at Tal Abyad in 2019 for access by government and military officials during military operations against both ISIS and the Kurdish fighters of the SDF/YPG as well as allowing some trade and goods across and access for funerals.¹⁵

ISIS seized Raqqa from Al-Sharaa’a Nusra Front before going on to take Mosul in Iraq. The government’s Al Tabqa military airbase lay just outside Raqqa.¹⁶ ISIS overran the base taking soldiers hostage, torturing and executing them despite their begging the government to negotiate their release.¹⁷

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi reclaims the caliphate of Harun al-Rashid

In November 2014, Jabhat al-Nusra’s base and prisons were finally taken over by rival extremists loyal to ISIS and al-Nusra and the smaller groups driven out. The earlier alliance entirely fragmented.¹⁹

After sweeping across the border into Iraq from Syria and taking control of Mosul in June 2014 Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (²⁰ originally named Ibrahim Awad al-Badri from Samarra in Iraq) proclaimed the Caliphate of the Islamic State there but Raqqa was to become its new capital.

Raqqa was strategically and ideologically important to him. He saw himself as bringing about the renewal of the Caliphate recalling the Caliphate of Harun al-Rashid. He stayed there with his first wife, Umm Hudaifa in the summer of 2014. She later gave an account of the period when held prisoner in Iraq.²¹

Munitions and equipment seized in Mosul as the Iraqi Army fled without putting up a fight was then transported back into Raqqa and elsewhere across Syria. As early as July 2014 conditions had become extremely unstable with the violence exploited in the streets by militia commanders unchecked. By the end of the year Raqqa had become one of the most dangerous parts of Syria to live in.²²

US-led strikes on ISIS positions included Raqqa, peaking at the end of 2014 into early 2015. Living conditions rapidly deteriorated. Bread shortages soon began and overall power supply was inadequate. Raqqa was one of the main bread baskets of Syria, but ISIS lacked specialist managers and engineers able to run the city effectively. The group held on there until October 2017 but by that stage, the extremists had lost the support of the local population.

Overall, ISIS was perceived to have become detrimental to the revolution and did not represent local people. Crime rates and kidnapping had risen to new heights even when under the control of al-Nusra.

By 2017 many residential neighbourhoods of Raqqa had been destroyed in fighting. ISIS lost its seat in the autumn. The US-backed SDF then gained control after heavy fighting. It was reported that by then 80% of the city had been reduced to rubble.

The SDF declared complete liberation from ISIS which had held the city for the past three years. Mines and explosive devices had to be removed before locals could begin to return and assess the destruction to their homes and livelihoods. They had fled even as ISIS fighters surrendered to the YPG Kurdish forces. ISIS had run the stadium as a prison, the last bastion to be abandoned. See the ABC video of the destruction soon after liberation from ISIS:

While some Arab tribes and locals first supported ISIS in Raqqa, disenchantment swiftly set in over the militias’ excesses.

“We didn’t fight and protest Assad to then have these fanatics,” explained a secular activist, already aware of religious hardline militias. He continued, “one thing that keeps us activists hopeful is our society. Although Raqqa is a tribal area, people are open and tolerant. Even those who are a bit conservative, are very open-minded compared to Jabhat al-Nusrah or ISIS. So, our society will resist [their] imposed regime.”²³²³

The border crossing gate at Tal Abyad into Turkey wasn’t re-opened until 12 years later in May 2026 after the SDF had been obliged to surrender control to Al Sharaa’s forces.

Al Hol Internment Camp in al-Hasakeh Province

Al Hol lies about 170 km west of Raqqa as the crow flies but just 13 km from the Iraqi border and entry to the Yazidi area of Sinjar via the flashpoint town of Rabia. It was first established as a refugee camp for Iraqi refugees fleeing the turmoil of the 1990 Gulf War. It re-opened at the time of the US invasion of Iraq for the same purpose. Between 2016-2017 it received a new wave of Iraqi’s fleeing from ISIS and Shi’a militia revenge attacks in Nineveh governorate. ²⁴

In 2019 the camp was transformed into a holding tank for ISIS-allied families after the fall of Baghouz in SE Syria on March 23 of that year, at one point holding as many as 73,000 people. It was closed down in February 2026 after the Kurdish SDF forces were pressurised into giving up control of the camp along with the rest of Raqqa, Der ez-Zor and much of al-Hasakeh.

ISIS loyalists outside the camp engaged in battle leading to the escape of detainees when the site as left without guards in the change-over of responsibility. The New Arab cited official data from the camp that thousands of detainees escaped due to the sudden lack of surveillance.

The camp’s population had been 23,407 people the day before the government takeover, including 6,280 foreigners from more than 40 nationalities. The SDF said its forces had been “compelled” to withdraw from the camp. As they had already lost the support of many of their Arab fighters during the HTS take-over of the country, they were left without backing.²⁵

The second Trump administration had already abandoned them as during his first term in office, instead welcoming Ahmed al-Sharaa to the diplomatic fold as a ‘great new leader.’ The smaller Roj camp was located near Derik.

It contained suspects accused of links to jihadist groups, many of whom were foreign nationals. Derik provides access to the Semalka crossing leading across the river to Faysh Khabur in Iraqi Kurdistan. The river represents the border. It has long been the artery feeding arms, oil and US personnel back and forth between the two Kurdish-controlled regions.²⁶

A report published by the Emerald Expert Briefings of October 16, 2017, observed of Raqqa that:

“Some 80% of the city, which was the de facto capital of Islamic State (IS) until its capture by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), was ruined in fighting and reconstruction efforts have been limited. With 90% of the governorate’s population of tribal origin, the Kurdish-dominated SDF relies on clientelist networks with tribal leaders, all Sunni Arab, to maintain order and garner support.”²⁷

The organisation also made predictions that largely held true until after regime change on December 7, 2024, as below:

Impacts

Local and regional actors will compete for tribal leaders’ loyalty, creating divisions within tribes and clans.

The SDF will retain the support of Raqqa-based tribal leaders.

Tribal leaders who have fled elsewhere will promote dissent in SDF areas of control.

Some youths who sympathise with IS’s cause will cause instability in Raqqa.²⁸

When Islamist militiamen who had gathered under the banner of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham descended on Hama from their stronghold northwest in Idlib in December 2024, locals old enough to remember the earlier slaughter feared a replay. Hama was Syria’s 4^th largest city. It fell swiftly in the end, but 13 long years into the internal conflict that had ravaged the entire country.

Rival Arab tribes and the creation of the Office of Tribes and Clans

The tribes – and there are many – remain very powerful locally. The truce agreement reached on January 18, 2026, under considerable duress between Al Sharaa’s regime and the SDF following violent clashes between their respective forces led to the withdrawal of the SDF from Raqqa and Deir ez-Zour provinces as well as their removal from control over Al Hol camp in al-Hasakeh, as detailed above.

Less publicised has been that this situation ostensibly arose because the Arab fighters in their brigades had largely defected to al-Sharaa. The Arab Center DC usefully analysed it thus:

Importantly, the region changed hands not because Syria’s newly established national army proved more capable, but because Arab tribes switched sides, defecting from SDF military structures and handing the region to the Damascus government on a golden platter. Yet control has not delivered inclusion. Arab tribes that helped the central authority regain control are now largely ruled by outsiders, and many feel that the capital benefits from the region’s natural resources without giving local people their fair share. In consequence, the same grievances about regional inequality that existed under Bashar al-Assad—and that contributed to Syria’s 2011 uprising—are now building up against the new government…

The relationship between this peripheral part of Syria and the capital has rarely been stable. Protesters in the region joined the 2011 uprising against the Assad regime; in 2014, when the Sheitat clan rose up against IS’s attempts to control the al-Omar oilfield, fighting killed as many as 1,000 people. In 2023-24, Ibrahim al-Hefl, one of the sheikhs of the Uqaydat tribe, led an insurgency against the SDF on the grounds that it was seizing the region’s oil while neglecting its people…

Damascus has seized the east, but so far has made no real effort to include it in governance. It rules the three eastern governorates through outsiders, draws on the region’s natural resources, and responds to protests with concessions rather than with inclusion. This relationship risks reproducing the same dynamic that existed between the center and the periphery under the Assad regime. Unless Damascus offers the east a real share of power and revenue, it will recreate the same grievances that led to earlier revolts in this region… ²⁹

In September 2025, Ahmed Al Sharaa established an “Office of Tribes and Clans” in September. Administration was put into the hands of his old combatant, Jihad Issa al-Sheikh, (Abu Ahmed Zakour) with three branches in Aleppo, Hama and Idlib.

France 24 noted: “Strategically placed alongside Aleppo’s Bureau of political affairs, the local branch of the Office of Tribes and Clans has moved into the former premises of the …Its task is to maintain the non-aggression pact between Syria’s former rebels and the Sunni militias that had previously backed the Assad regime, before switching sides during the lightening offensive… in November 2024. It was their change of allegiance that led to the fall of Aleppo, Syria’s economic capital, in just three days, hastening the end of Assad rule…”³⁰

The eastern provinces’ descent into Salafism anew

Sheikh al-Dhahabi proselytises extremist Islamic views anew, back where his voice once echoed in the name of ISIS.

Al-Sharaa’s former allies have been rewarded with positions and power.

According to the Asma Center’s research, immediately after Kurdish forces withdrew from northeastern Syria and al-Sharaa’s forces deployed in their place, numerous documents emerged showing (Egyptian cleric, Sheikh) al-Dhahabi’s preachers arriving in Raqqa and al-Hasakah alongside al-Sharaa’s soldiers, distributing Qur’an and hadith books, Islamic kits, and bags containing niqabs for local women.³¹ See, Niqab makes a comeback to Syria’s Universities.

A female ISIS member brigade, the Khansa Battalion, led by Saudi militant, Nada al-Qahtani, once paraded in Raqqa’s streets, all concealed in niqab and brandishing rifles.³²

One would do well to ask what the fight against ISIS was ultimately for and how much it cost in blood as well as economically? Equally, what has the Syrian uprising achieved and what has it lost? And, ultimately, are we seeing a Taliban-style clampdown on all manner of freedoms that Syrians had once taken for granted?

A recent poster edict hung in the streets of Damascus equates long hems on men’s trousers that fall below the ankle bone providing a ticket to hell.

The poster reads:

قال رسول الله ﷺ ما أسْفَلَ مِنَ الكَعْبَيْنِ
مِنَ الإِزَارِ فَفِي النَّارِ

“The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:   ‘Whatever of the lower garment (Izār) is below the ankles is in the Fire.'”

The Hadith “Whatever of the lower garment is below the ankles is in the Fire” is an authentic (sahih) Hadith narrated by Imam al-Bukhari in Sahih al-Bukhari on the authority of Abu Hurairah (may Allah be pleased with him).

Brief Meaning of the Hadith

The lower garment (Izār): Refers to what is worn on the lower half of the body; trousers, robes, and pants are measured by the same rule.

The two ankles (Al-Ka’bayn): The two prominent bones at the joint connecting the lower leg and the foot.

Below the ankles: Whatever part of the clothing extends beyond the ankles and drags towards the ground.

Is in the Fire: A severe warning indicating the prohibition of Isbal (lengthening clothing below the ankles), signifying that the portion of the garment extending beyond the prescribed limit exposes the wearer to punishment in the Fire.

Backwards in time

Clearly such medieval religious pronouncements that the ‘new’ regime neither rejects nor prevents from being made public do not bode well for Syria’s present or future wellbeing. Raqqa was largely rebuilt when under SDF control through the AANES funding sources.

One source said to me, “Yes, the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces and its political front, the AANES tried to grain grassroots support by rebuilding it and prioritising Raqqa for any funding provided by NGOs originally were there for intelligence purposes. They compiled a report on the tribal organisation of Raqqa that detailed the location of each clan, its size, its leader and so on.

Raqqa, like all Syria, has become a victim of the new world order.

The new government has changed the name of a school named after Raqqa’s prominent novelist, Abd al-Salam Al-Ujayli (1918-2006) a fine and cultured man that the city had given birth to, a doctor, writer and political figure…” ³³

Now, it is back in the hands of the duplicitous sheikhs and, increasingly, it seems, the fundamentalists.

1 Asharq al-Awsat, January 6, 2014, Militant Groups Surveil Syrian Sufis
2 https://worldhistoryedu.com/abbasid-caliph-harun-al-rashid-life-reign-accomplishments/
3 https://ikurd.net/hostages-jihad-austin-tice-2025-08-29
4
5 “There was no word from the Jordanian government on whether its planes had struck Raqqa on Friday. But activists who monitor the Syrian conflict from inside the country said US-led coalition planes hit several targets on the edges and outskirts of Raqqa, in quick succession on Friday.” See more at https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4623818,00.html
6 https://www.newamerica.org/insights/how-raqqa-became-capital-isis/revolutionary-rule-in-raqqa-march-2013-november-2013/
7 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10051207/Under-the-black-flag-of-al-Qaeda-the-Syrian-city-ruled-by-gangs-of-extremists.html
8 Ibid.
9 https://israel-alma.org/is-syria-returning-to-salafi-islam-the-sharia-campaign-of-the-isis-mufti/
10 www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10051207/Under-the-black-flag-of-al-Qaeda-the-Syrian-city-ruled-by-gangs-of-extremists.html
11 http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/03/201334151942410812.html
12 Op. Cit. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10051207/Under-the-black-flag-of-al-Qaeda-the-Syrian-city-ruled-by-gangs-of-extremists.html
13 Ibid.
14 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-25460397
15 https://www.institutkurde.org/en/info/latest/turkey-syria-border-gate-to-reopen-after-12-year-closure-15141/
16 https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/the-jihadist/
17 https://creativememory.org/chronology/al-tabqa-airbase-massacre/
18 https://www.courrierinternational.com/article/2014/11/10/le-tweet-qui-montre-que-le-calife-de-l-etat-islamique-est-blesse
19 https://www.eip.org/report-on-the-legacy-of-isis-rule-in-northeast-syria/raqqa/
20 https://jamestown.org/new-details-on-the-life-of-iraqs-abu-bakr-al-baghdadi/
21 https://www.bbc.com/afrique/articles/c255ge7j7n1o
22 https://www.newamerica.org/insights/how-raqqa-became-capital-isis/raqqa-isis-capital/
23 Ibid.
24 https://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/camp-profile-al-hol-al-hasakeh-governorate-syria-april-2017
25 https://thearabweekly.com/eu-alarmed-mass-escape-relatives-isis-members-syrian-camp
26 https://dearborn.org/preview/sudden-closure-of-the-faysh-khabour-semalka-crossing-between-the-regions-of-iraqi-kurdistan-and-the-sdf-29575
27 https://www.emerald.com/expert-briefings/article-abstract/doi/10.1108/OXAN-DB239205/471083/Rivals-will-use-tribes-to-destabilise-Syria-s?redirectedFrom=fulltext
28 Ibid.
29 https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/control-without-inclusion-eastern-syria-under-damascus/
30 https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20260115-syria-sunni-clans-hold-key-to-stability-ending-sectarian-strife-sharaa
31 https://israel-alma.org/is-syria-returning-to-salafi-islam-the-sharia-campaign-of-the-isis-mufti/#_ftn9
32 https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2016/02/28/Baghdadi-appoints-ISIS-female-fighter-to-Syria-battalion
33 https://www.dappledthings.org/reviews/an-overlooked-syrian-writer

Sheri Laizer, a Middle East and North African expert specialist and well known commentator on the Kurdish issue. She is a senior contributing writer for iKurd.net. More about Sheri Laizer see below.

The post The Rape of Raqqa and How It Became the ISIS Capital appeared first on iKurd News.

Despoling the Goddess: Zenobia, the Empress of Palmyra (Tadmor) Symbolised a Waning Universality

Sheri Laizer | Exclusive to iKurd.net

Palmyra

Palmyra, so well-known for its near complete obliteration by ISIS in 2015 was once the seat of a 3rd century enlightened, if warlike empire. Its Empress bore the honorific name Septimia Zenobia Augusta, reflecting family loyalty to the Roman Severan dynasty.

Her Palmyrene name was Bat Zabbai or daughter of Zabbai in Aramaic. Historical opinion is divided over many aspects of her genealogy but reach a general consensus in that Zenobia probably had both Aramean and Arab ancestry. 1

When her husband, Ras (Lord) Odaenathus, a Romanized Arab, was murdered in 267 AD she automatically became regent. Odaenathus had become lord of the Palmyrene empire just seven years before after retaking the hub in 226 AD from the Sassanian Persians whose capital was situated in Ctesiphon across the Euphrates south of contemporary Baghdad.

A great battle to retake Palmyra was waged between the two forces in 263 AD, with the Romans ultimately victorious. The Sassanid monarch, Shapur 1, retreated to Ctesiphon from where Odaenathus’s pursuing forces were forced back.

Palmyra lay on the caravan route through the desert and Zenobia – who claimed Egyptian descent from Cleopatra as well as from Dido, Queen of Carthage (in contemporary Tunisia), ostensibly for political reasons in extending her realm by annexing parts of the Roman Empire, Judaea and Petra and as far as northern Egypt.

Palmyra remained the beating heart of her empire and was a site of culture, philosophy and learning. Her son, Vaballathus, at age ten was too young to rule. Thus, to consolidate her territory and his succession, Zenobia resumed minting coins with the Roman Emperor Aurelian’s profile and the title imperator on the obverse with her son Vaballathus’ face and the title of rex on the reverse.

This act is viewed by historians as her attempt to signify loyalty to Rome despite her military campaigns against various Roman provinces. “The numismatic evidence and papyri documents are all that remain of Aurelian’s response to Zenobia’s invasion of Egypt.” 2

However, sensing Roman weakness, in 272 AD, Zenobia changed the coin to omit Aurelian’s profile. Her son became ‘august’ and herself ‘augusta’ – Roman honorifics of the period.

Aurelian at last reacted to her machinations, defeating the Goths and then moving his army via Byzantium to pursue an invasion southward, fielding a second front from Egypt that Zenobia was unable to match. The two armies collided near Antioch, subject to Turkish annexation in 1939 as part of the province of Hatay, the city itself now known as Antakya.

Zenobia was then taken captive in 272 AD and conveyed as a trophy to Rome. Some sources claim she remarried a Roman senator and lived with him in a fine villa as would any high-born Roman woman. Other sourced claim she was executed by Aurelian after the victory parade more in keeping with Imperial Roman military and political character.

The Hatay Dispute

Hatay had been part of the the Ottoman sanjak of Alexandretta. It had fallen under the French mandate of Syria and Lebanon after the collapse of the Turkish Empire. Hatay was still included as part of Syria in the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923.

The Hatay Dispute became part of a wider French-Turkish dispute. Syrian Arabs still hold France responsible for giving way to Turkey fearing an invasion of the region by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

The Hatay State became the Hatay Republic and joined Turkey after a referendum claimed to have been rigged by the Turks given that 46% of the population was Arab, 39% were Turks/Turkmen, 11% Armenian and the remaining 4% Circassian, Kurdish and Jewish. 3

Zenobia Women’s Gathering

A mixed ethnic women’s group called The Zenobia Women’s gathering was founded in 2021 as part of the women’s movement in Raqqa, Tabqa, Manbij, Deir ez-Zor and flashpoints that were retaken from ISIS after much bloodshed, including that of female fighters.

After the conquest of the Assad government by Hay’at Tahir al-Sham (HTS) on December 7, 2024, women who had come together against ISIS felt the ground shifting afresh beneath their feet. Using the symbolism of Zenobia and her enlightened reign in Palmyra they released a statement a year after the transitional or interim government had been in power and massacres of minorities were undermining trust.

It read, “Syria will not be built by force or exclusion, but through dialogue, justice, and respect for the will of its people, and that women will remain the voice of wisdom and guardians of the country’s unity and peace.”4

Gathered under its banner were Kurdish, Circassian, Turkmen and Arab women recognising the shared goal of protecting women’s gains following from the defeat of ISIS and of the wider extremist Salafist jihad. They organised women’s centres to combat ‘honour’ killing, domestic violence, polygamy, and address challenging issues over divorce, inheritance rights and child marriage.

Ahmed al-Sharaa’s regime then retook control of Raqqa, Taqba and areas from where ISIS had been driven out.

Opponents of the Zenobia Women’s Organisation claim it is linked to the PKK. At the conference where the group had first announced itself early in June 2021, some 150 women representatives took part from the four SDF-controlled areas at that time, Tabqa, Raqqa, Deir ez-Zor and Manbij.

The Future Syria Party leader, general secretary, Siham Daoud, was present and the party was believed to be a sister of the JPG and the PKK female forces. PKK veteran general secretary, Abdullah Öcalan’s image was visible along with various banners of the PKK’s sister organisations. The Arabic, Kurdish and Syriac languages were all used in reports written for the media.

Ahmed al-Sharaa’s female appointees

The Zanobia group has since come to loggerheads with Ahmed al-Sharaa’a new regime. In the appointment of the new People’s Assembly members on Jul 1, 2026, Ahmed al-Sharaa included 22 women of a total of 210 members, 70 of whom were directly appointed by al-Sharaa himself citing presidential privilege and the right to name one third of his cabinet. The women included Fasla Yusuf from the Kurdish Democratic Unity Party who appeared in subtle Kurdish dress not exhibiting the Kurdish national colours of red, yellow and green.

Fasla Yusef had been her party’s secretary and was the past president of the Kurdish National Council (ENKS) that opposed the PYD (Democratic Union Party linked to the current ideology of Abdullah Öcalan). Yusuf had briefly been detained by the PYD for three weeks in 2017. 5

ENKS is in fact aligned with the KDP of Iraq led by the Barzanis. ENKS was first established on October 26, 2011, with the support of the KDP – and Turkey and in perpetuation of the shared goals of each in Syria.

The pro-SDF media organisation, ANHA, Hawar News Agency, accused ENKS of direct collaboration with the Turkish Intelligence Agency (MIT) and with KDP Intelligence (Parastin) claiming there had been meetings with MIT 16 times since 2016. 6 ENKS representatives continue to meet with Massoud Barzani, who claims to be stressing ‘Kurdish unity.’

Ahmed al-Sharaa also appointed Mervat (also spelled Marfat and Mirvet) Muhammed Subhi Toto (Toutou) who adopted niqab at the event. She comes from Idlib that was held under former HTS control. She had been married to the (deceased) leader/commander of Jaysh al-Fatah (Army of Conquest) code-named Abu Omar Saraqib and also Abu Hajar al-Homsi and Abou Khaled Lubnani (whose real name, is Osama Namoura). He had fought alongside Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq. 7 His wife taught in Idlib for thirteen years. 8

Osama Namoura was a co-founder of al-Sharaa’s Jabhat al-Nusra, the AQ brand first operating in Syria. He became general commander of its successor, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and was killed in an air strike in September 2016 during a meeting of (regional) leaders in the village of Kafr Nahr, 15 km west of Aleppo. Jabhat al-Nusra had changed its name to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham in July 2016 when it split from Al Qaeda but perpetuated a similar ideology with a Syria-centric focus.

Several other senior jihadists were killed in the blast that targeted the hidden compound, with Namoura’s deputy commander, Abu Muslim al-Shami being wounded. The US denied involvement leading to speculation the strike was carried out either by Russian or Syrian government aircraft. Sources later stated it was unknown if al-Sharaa then going by his codename Abu Mohamed al-Jolani had been present. 9

The appointment of an Al Nusra former commander’s widow to his new cabinet sends a clear message. She was also the first women to ever wear niqab in the parliament as the extreme covering had been banned under the former government.

Al Sharaa appointed 15 of the 22 women directly such that only seven women were elected from the committees first established in 2025.

Mazloum Abdi and female commander, Newroz Ahmed, had also been welcomed to the People’s Palace. Newroz Ahmed chose to remain in military uniform.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/919269314112941

MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute) published a report in September 2026, called Islamization And Religious Radicalization In Syria Under The Al Sharaa Regime, one of the first recent publications to sound any warning notes about the new regime. It opens by stating,

“The new Syrian regime headed by President Ahmed al-Sharaa – formerly the leader of the Islamist organization, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – is promoting religious radicalization and Islamization in Syria, despite its public statements about commitment to the rule of law, pluralism, and civil equality, and (sic) although it enjoys considerable foreign support, including from the U.S. and other Western countries…”11

MEMRI also observed that on August 24, 2026, the US removed Syria from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism (SST) and announced the revocation of HTS’s status as a Specially Designed Global Terrorist (SDGT) along with its removal from the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list, which includes companies, organizations, and individuals identified as threats to the US, with the goal of promoting Syria’s national recovery. 12

MEMRI also noted: “Furthermore the US appears to be downplaying the severity of other extremist trends in Syria under the Al-Sharaa regime including the promotion of extremist ideology within the education system, which portrays jihadists and leaders of terrorist organizations as “heroes”; jihadist calls for action against Israel; the repression of women and restrictions on their freedoms; 13 persecution and incitement against minority groups in the country, and clear measures aimed at consolidating a dictatorial regime…” 14

Women’s rights

Syrian women – that include women from minority groups and religions – need to integrate their demands and vision to go beyond all-female groups, including sect-based groups and avowedly feminist organisations.

In my experience, separating women into self-representing groups like the Zenobia Women’s Organisation actually serve more than anything to keep women apart from men and achieving an integrated society. Such groups further divide society by gender instead of attaining a unified community in which persons are not primarily defined by their sex or sect.

Segregation ultimately serves Islamic fundamentalism and that is achieving great strides in Ahmed al-Sharaa’s Syria.

Sheri Laizer, a Middle East and North African expert specialist and well known commentator on the Kurdish issue. She is a senior contributing writer for iKurd.net. More about Sheri Laizer see below.

The post Despoiling the goddess: Zenobia of Palmyra and fading universality appeared first on iKurd News.

A Terror Torture-Free Turkey?

Sheri Laizer | Exclusive to iKurd.net

Part two: Political prisoners and Kurdish demands

The first part of this analysis examined the ongoing problem of oppression, and the use of torture in Turkey in service of the Turkish nation. That nation is no longer basing itself on the secular ideology of Kemal Ataturk but a conservative interpretation of Sunni Islam and the ‘ummah’ (Muslim community).

To this end, Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, seeks to absorb Kurdish identity into the Turkish state like others before him, without acknowledging Kurdish demands that go beyond the gun.

Erdogan has recently forged a new Sunni triangle based on Islamic values between Turkey, Saudi-Arabia and Pakistan, dubbed, The Mecca Pact. The focus is on security. An armed attack against any one partner will be treated as an attack on all. The details of the agreement are (not yet) public. 1

Women fighters in Islamic states?

Because the PKK and its sister organization, the YPG in Kurdish Syria, are fundamentally socialist and secular and base aspects of their ideology on equality between men and women they are at odds with the Islamic governments.

These governments seek to implement Sharia law that also serves to relegate women to their domestic roles of old. For example, the women’s forces in the PKK (Yekîneyên Jinên Azad ên Star) 2 and in the YPG (Women’s Protection Units Yekîneyên Parastina Jin– the JPG) run their own units.

In Syria, under ‘interim president’ Ahmed al-Sharaa, the self-professed reformed Al Qaeda leader, no role has yet been envisioned to keep the Kurdish women’s military unit together – a proposal that they could join a female tourist police unit was rejected by its leader, Newroz Ahmed. “YPJ commanders flatly rejected the tourist police offer.

They argue that reducing an elite, battle-tested military force to a civilian police auxiliary undermines their capabilities and leaves women’s rights unprotected. 3 Syria’s new female ‘tourist’ police unit members wear hijab. They come under male authority. 4 Kurdistan 24 reported: “Speaking to the Kurdish Peace Institute on June 16, 2026, Rohilat Afrin warned that women are not being “seen, formally accepted, or included” by Damascus as the integration of the northeast progresses.” 5

Female fighters from the PKK’s Women’s Defence Forces and others in the JPG faced death and torture when taken prisoner by ISIS, by Turkish-run militias and the Turkish army and security forces. Turkey still brands them all as ‘terrorists.’ The state-dominated media perpetuate the accusation crowing when any is captured and imprisoned back in Turkey.

TRT state television calls them PKK/YPG terrorists running the two together and accusing them of terror attacks on Turkish forces and civilians putting any captive taken alive on trial much like the show trial of Abdullah Öcalan. See the TRT video of the capture of a YPG fighter codenamed ‘Çîçek Kobanê– in English, this translates as ‘the flower of Kobane’. 6 Her given name is Dozgin Temo. She is a Syrian Kurdish national, not Turkish.

Kobanê was captured after being wounded by Turkish-run Islamic extremist militia, Ahrar al-Sham in October 2019 near Ain Issa. Returned to Turkey, a Turkish Court sentenced her to life imprisonment in 2021. 7

She was forcibly moved from a prison in Urfa far from her family in 2024. She was a medical officer within the YPG. 8

PKK-affiliated Medya News noted at the time: In March 2021, a Turkish court (Urfa 5th High Criminal Court) sentenced her to aggravated life imprisonment plus an additional ten years and ten months on charges including “disrupting the unity and integrity of the state”, “membership of an illegal armed organisation” and “attempted murder”.

The verdict, which was upheld by the Court of Cassation in May 2022, “overlooked evidence that DozginTemo was engaged in humanitarian aid rather than combat at the time of her capture, as evidenced by the fact that she was dressed in civilian clothes in post-capture videos.” Images of her appear below. 9

She is in fact a prisoner of war as the YPG was a legitimate force backed by the United States at the time in the fight against ISIS. 10 Her captors shot her twice in the leg after seizing her. Turkish militias and the army conveyed a number of prisoners illegally to Turkey. No one can free them from their cells.

The Salafist fighters gloated over Temo’s capture chanting ‘to slaughter, to slaughter’ and “Treat her as a captive, she is booty” 11 much like ISIS with the Yazidis.

Al Shara’a’s militants in the security services acted similarly when capturing, rough-handling and killing YPG female fighters in clashes in Aleppo in January this year before the ‘integration’ deal was progressed further. They were called ‘pigs’ as militants chanted Allahu Akhbar. 12

As the new ‘interim’ government in Syria – like its Turkish ally – views women’s roles in traditional Muslim terms, there can be no place for independent units of female fighters even in ‘defence.’ If Abdullah Öcalan called on them to dissolve themselves as part of the dissolution of the PKK and SDF, would the women be able to refuse the appeal, I wonder.

Has anyone stood up to him openly since the large-scale breakaways after his capture? The PKK killed off their strongest competitors in the leadership of the Patriotic Democratic Party of Kurdistan (PWDK). The voice of Öcalan prevailed and prevails still despite the former ideology of celibacy until Kurdistan is free that endured for decades amongst fighters and civil cadres alike.

Locked up, silenced

Kurds who gave their lives to the call for an independent Kurdistan and thousands of activists and peaceful protestors unwell and imprisoned in overcrowded F, S and Y-type “pit’ style Turkish jails. The Istanbul Bar has called for the closure of the ‘pit-type’ prisons ‘citing dignity violations.’ 13

Many political prisoners spend years in isolation passed in badly aired cells with health problems arising from the deprivation of sunlight, a lack of exercise and inadequate access to physicians. Social isolation and highly restricted visitation rights also take a heavy toll.

The Stockholm Center for Human Rights observed last year (2025) in a report headed, Turkey’s ‘pit type’ prisons under fire amid hunger strikes, rights concerns:

“Turkey has 400 prisons with an official capacity of 304,608 (people) but which currently hold 416,927 inmates. Among them are 13 Y-type, 7 S-type and 22 other high-security facilities. Despite the overcrowding crisis, the Ministry of Justice plans to allocate 20 billion TL ($490 million) to build 11 new prisons by 2027.” 14

A report by the same group for the following month observed: “authorities have made no concrete improvements to existing prison conditions, leaving the demands of inmates and human rights groups unaddressed.” 15

Locking people up is Turkey’s age-old answer to opposition. More and more of them find themselves in captivity.

Questions to Shakhawan Shorsh, Kurdish writer and political scientist

Following on from Part One that focused on the systematic torture of opposition elements in Turkey negating the ‘terror-free Turkey’ slogan, I asked Shakhawan Shorsh two broad questions. It is my professional opinion that Abdullah Öcalan has failed the Kurdish people: as soon as he fell captive to the Turkish state, Öcalan betrayed his own message that led to four decades of blood sacrifice by tens of thousands of Kurds and the imprisonment of tens of thousands of others.

Q: Can we really believe the PKK is prepared to sacrifice the struggle for a nation for the sake of its failed leader?”

Shakhawan Shorsh: If Öcalan is released, there is a strong possibility that the PKK will accept the law that has been approved. What can be seen in the law is an attempt to find a way toward dissolving the PKK, while many PKK prisoners are not released.

The PKK does not say that all prisoners must be released; rather, it says that Öcalan’s freedom is a red line. This means that if he is released, they will do what Öcalan asks of them — namely, dissolve themselves and lay down their arms. Apart from that, the names of other political prisoners who are not members of the PKK are not even mentioned.

It seems that, for the PKK, Öcalan’s release is equivalent to the theoretical success of the concept of a democratic society in Turkey, while Turkey continues to pursue a policy of repression and violence against its critics and opponents and regards demands for the rights of the Kurdish people as treason.

Q: The focus of Kurdish rights in Turkey since 1999 and the show trial of Ocalan, has highlighted how the PKK leader has given away every previous gain and has also had his critics murdered. He now denies the importance of ‘Kurdistan’. Has the cult of Apo won or is it MIT (the Turkish Intelligence Apparatus – Millî İstihbarat Teşkilatı ) that has won – is there actually any difference?’

Shorsh: If we look at the PKK leadership’s programmes and statements, it is sometimes difficult to clearly understand what they actually want. For many years, the PKK and Öcalan have opposed the national state solution and regarded it as an important cause of the decline of societies. From this perspective, they end up opposing the demands of Kurds who seek national rights and the attainment of national self-determination.

Their problem is that they compare Turkey’s racism with the possibility of a Kurdish nation-state. The Kurdish people are an oppressed people and have the right, like any other people, to be free and determine their own destiny.

A free Kurdistan does not necessarily have to be a racist nation-state. This is demonstrated by the fact that the peoples living within Kurdistan have historically lived together peacefully, and Kurds are not inherently racist unless extremist leaders lead them in that direction.

The cult of Apo is very dominant among PKK supporters, to such an extent that Apo’s supporters and followers equate Apo’s existence with the freedom and equality of the peoples of the region. Yes, this cult has grown to the point where it has become more important than the legitimate demands of the people of Kurdistan — if we recognise that the rights of the Kurdish people existed and will continue to exist regardless of Apo’s presence or absence.

Apo is the leader of a party, and his ideology is only one ideology. In a racist Turkey, its possibilities are limited, even if he is released.

With the dissolution of the PKK, the abandonment of the demand for the national rights of Kurdistan, and giving up those demands in the name of equality between Turks and Kurds in a future Turkey, Turkey’s intelligence service, MIT, will see itself as the victor. Erdoğan and Bahçeli will see it in the same way. But has the Kurdish issue come to an end and been resolved?

Certainly not.

Q: Thank you, Kak Shakhawan, that says it all.

Sheri Laizer, a Middle East and North African expert specialist and well known commentator on the Kurdish issue. She is a senior contributing writer for iKurd.net. More about Sheri Laizer see below.

The post A Torture-Free Turkey? – Part II appeared first on iKurd News.

A Terror Torture-Free Turkey?

Does this smell like ‘democracy’ – or does it just smell?

Sheri Laizer | Exclusive to iKurd.net

“They blindfolded me, handcuffed me by one hand to the interrogation table and began kicking at my legs till I fell down on the floor, still suspended by one arm to the table above. I was hit in the back of my head, kicked repeatedly in my stomach and then I felt boots striking me in my back. I was uncuffed and then dragged down rough, concrete steps and shoved into a windowless, airless, basement that stank of urine. There, the police then grabbed at my clothes and stripped me naked. Electronic cables were attached to my genitals, and I was given repeated electric shocks till I screamed and begged them to stop…”1

Torture in Turkey and police brutality have not improved one iota since the supposed ‘peace process’ between Erdoğan’s autocracy and the PKK began.

Turkish torture methods include not only the giving of electric shocks to the genitals, but sexual assault and rape of both male and female detainees (with hard objects and through genetic contact). The deprivation of food, water and light, as well as isolation. The detainee is likely to be held for two or three days at a time without charge and without access to a lawyer or family member. Incommunicado detention is often imposed in unsanitary (filthy) conditions. A confession will then be tailormade to whatever the police demand despite the actual circumstances and fear aroused to induce a detainee to confess.

Broad context of repression

The 2025 Global Torture Index released by the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT in French) on June 25, of that year puts Turkey in the second-highest risk tier among 26 countries assessed, citing widespread allegations of torture, unchecked police violence and legal and institutional barriers that block accountability…

Turkey was designated a high-risk country ‘due to weak institutional safeguards and a rapidly shrinking civic space.’ A diagram usefully provided in an article by Turkish Minute illustrates the following sequences:

The group went on to state that the ‘OMCT’s analysis shows that ‘torture and ill-treatment are particularly common during politically charged investigations under Counterterrorism Law No. 3713, which Turkish authorities routinely use to arrest perceived opponents, including journalists, Kurdish activists and critics of the government…

The law’s vague language and broad definition of terrorism allow for expansive application with little judicial oversight…The index categorizes Turkey’s response to impunity as high risk, reflecting systemic barriers to justice and a lack of political will to prosecute perpetrators…’ 3

Informants

Coercion of detainees to inform against the organisation, political party, civil society group cultural or religious association that they support occurs during and following torture sessions coupled with further threats of harm including to friends and family members. The demand that the detainee consent to become an informant is often proffered as a means to ending the torture session.

The Turkish Intelligence Agency (MIT) also formally works to recruit and then deploy informants to monitor opposition activists who are living abroad. According to Nordic Monitor: ‘MIT agents stationed at Turkish embassies and consulates reportedly pre-screen individuals for potential recruitment.

Upon arrival in Turkey, these targets are approached by agents — sometimes at airports — who attempt to persuade or pressure them into cooperating with the agency.…MIT has followed a systematic approach over the past decade, allowing it to establish an extensive network of assets and informants — particularly in Europe, where the largest number of Turkish expatriates resides.

The agency’s primary objectives include monitoring political dissidents, influencing the foreign policy of host nations through proxies, identifying possible vulnerabilities and enhancing Turkey’s diplomatic leverage…While MIT maintains a permanent presence at most airports, these specialized teams are tasked exclusively with recruitment operations and report directly to headquarters in Ankara… 4

Facial Recognition Technology is also in widespread use by the police at demonstrations and in the airports.5

Monitoring, identification, repression

The goals of the Turkish state have not fundamentally changed since the PKK’s foundation – these goals – and the methods that help forge them – focus on destroying (‘dismantling’) the PKK – and ending overall Kurdish and popular resistance.

Kurds in Turkey that support parties other than the PKK (and the quasi-legal chain of parties from HEP through to the HDP/DEM 6) also face high risks of torture based on their imputed political opinion. Civilians that take part in pro-Kurdish demos, people who try to celebrate Newroz, and those that protest against Turkish incursions into Iraqi and Syrian Kurdistan etc. all face being detained at random and beaten or tortured in custody.

The youngest generations of Kurds growing up in Turkey have never known any security of life.  Far-right nationalist attitudes that underpin much of Turkish identity prevail overall.

Recep Onursal, a lecturer in politics and international conflict analysis observed last year, “Since 1993, peace efforts — including PKK ceasefires, back-channel talks, and a formal peace process  — have failed due to spoilers, lack of transparency, and the State’s reluctance to address root causes. Without structural changes to the political order, this initiative is likely to collapse like previous efforts.…The conflict also extends beyond Turkey, shaping — and shaped by — regional and international dynamics.”

“Kurdish political movements in Iraq, Syria, and Iran, along with Turkey’s foreign policy and relations with the United States and the European Union, influence both State actions and Kurdish strategies. International pressures, regional power struggles, and shifting alliances continue to determine whether the conflict moves toward resolution or escalation…” 7

Turkey’s abuse of Interpol is also an issue in how the state tries to undermine opposition. A Statewatch article from 2023 cited a letter from the Arrested Lawyers Network, headed, Interpol must halt Turkey’s use of databases to pursue dissidents.

It urged that: “Interpol must do more to prevent the Turkish government misusing its databases to target political dissidents abroad, says an open letter to the organisation’s secretary-general signed by more than 25 individuals and organisations, including Statewatch. The letter calls for Turkey to be suspended from using Interpol databases – in particular, the Stolen and Lost Travel Documents (SLTD) system – until the problem is dealt with. 8

Has the PKK overlooked the needs and desires of Kurds?

It is important to ask why Öcalan and the PKK have so long failed to criticise their Turkish counterparts over the ongoing use of torture and extrajudicial killing of civilians when so many are still being detained for expressing legitimate Kurdish aspirations or voicing discontent over the treatment meted out by their Turkish ‘brothers’. The laws work against them rather than providing any protection.

As Kurdish analyst, Shakhawan Shorsh, argued in his perceptive article, Turkey’s Parliamentary Approval to Dissolve the PKK: ‘The “Law” on Strengthening National Consensus and Social Unity, approved by a majority vote in the Turkish Parliament on August 10, 2026, addresses several issues related to the release of certain prisoners, procedures for surrender, and the dissolution of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)… Despite these measures, the law contains no explicit or implicit reference to the cultural, political, or national rights of the Kurdish people. Notably, the word “Kurd” does not appear in the legislation…” 9

Shakhawan Shorsh highlights the distinctions between the Turkish nationalist view of the Kurds in their midst and the thorny issues of Kurdish rights, Kurdish identity, culture, experience, the occupation of Kurdish lands and capture of resources, inter alia.

Who might be set free?

In calling for (Utopian) social change, and the release of prisoners, the PKK fails to emphasise the prevalence of torture still in use against Kurdish civilians (and others) by the Turkish security and intelligence services – these include the Cyber Security Presidency, MIT, the civil police, the gendarmes, the army, village guards, the Anti-Terror Forces, Special Forces and, indeed, various Turkish-backed Islamist paramilitaries going back to the years of Turkish Hizbullah (Türk Hizbullahı) the Grey Wolves, and other state-sanctioned murderers.

Western media sources have recently chosen to apply a positive spun to the approval of the new ‘Terror-Free Turkey’ law claiming it equates to ‘PKK reintegration’ despite the details only actually describing a ‘limited amnesty for Kurdish PKK militants’ – vague details. This is something we have heard before but have never seen to occur in meaningful terms.

France 24 reported: “After 12 hours of debate, lawmakers voted by 468 in favour to 88 against, with six abstentions, for the so-called “terror-free Turkey law” which envisages a return to civilian life for some of the PKK fighters who lay down their weapons without granting a total amnesty…But crucially, the text does not specify what will become of Öcalan, 77, who has spent the past 27 years being held in solitary confinement on Imrali prison island near Istanbul …The move is expected to involve the release of around 3,500 PKK-linked detainees in an initial phase, lawmakers said – around a third of the number held in Turkish prisons… ” 10

It’s not just about the PKK

Meanwhile, thousands of victims of Turkish death squads, the Disappeared, and political prisoners locked up across Turkey under Erdoğan’s special provisions are left out of the picture.

The long-running Saturday Mothers that congregated for years in Istanbul seeking information about their missing loved ones have faced endemic police harassment and raids on their demonstrations and private homes since the 1990s. Last year, 45 demonstrators were finally acquitted after being detained for seven long years from their 700th peaceful vigil.

Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for Europe, Dinushika Dissanayake, commented: “Almost seven years after the Saturday Mothers’ 700th peaceful vigil was violently broken up by riot police, 45 people standing trial for participating in the vigil have finally been acquitted and their ordeal ended. A prosecution that should have never seen the light of day, dragged on for years.”11

Turkey’s prisons currently hold around 420,000 detainees – a historic high according to Nordic Monitor. The group noted how: ‘Experts attribute the historic surge in inmate numbers to two intertwined factors: the rise in organized crime and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s policy of jailing political opponents…The Global Organized Crime Index recently ranked Turkey as Europe’s leading country in terms of state-linked organized crime actors.

The presence of mafia groups, drug traffickers and armed networks has grown significantly, exacerbated by years of government tolerance and corruption…At the same time President Erdoğan’s government has used the prison system as a political tool. While several amnesty bills were introduced over the past decade, ostensibly to reduce prison overcrowding, they were applied selectively.

Hundreds of thousands of convicts, including mafia members and extremists, were released, but political prisoners, dissidents, journalists, academics, activists and perceived opponents of the ruling party were deliberately excluded. This selective application has allowed violent offenders to regain their freedom while keeping critics behind bars, reinforcing the perception that amnesties serve political rather than humanitarian or penal purposes…’12

In 2025, a statement signed by 12 international organisations, including Statewatch, called on the Turkish government to “release political prisoners as part of a push to stop prison overcrowding…However, it is regrettable that similar laws passed in 2020 and 2023 discriminate against political prisoners who have been imprisoned under Turkey’s overly broad anti-terrorism provision (Article 314 of the Turkish Penal Code). This means that lawyers, journalists, politicians, artists, judges and prosecutors, and human rights defenders who have been imprisoned or convicted on terrorism-related charges will not benefit from early release.’ 13

Among their ranks is the popular CHP opposition leader, Ekrem Imamoğlu, who posed a challenge to Erdoğan’s continued presidency and, of course, the high profile HDP co-chair, Selahattin Demirtaş, whose release the European Court of Human Rights ordered on August 20, 2025 – to no effect.

Despite Turkey’s obligation under Article 46 to comply after nine years of wrongful imprisonment Erdoğan has rebutted the Court’s demands from the outset claiming its decisions are not binding and thereby defying the ruling. Selahattin Demirtaş, was jailed on November 4, 2016, over protests against ISIS taking of the Kurdish town of Kobane. 14 Other charges under the wide cast net of the Anti-Terror law followed.

Erdoğan’s state now appears to act almost entirely under his presidential command – sharing a page with Donald Trump. Abdullah Bozkurt, writing for Nordic Monitor observed that on July 24, 2026, another new law was adopted. The Electronic Communications Law with its newly added Article 60/A ‘grants the Cyber Security Presidency sweeping powers over citizens’ access to internet sites, digital surveillance and wiretapping…’

Bozkurt summarised that Turkey has ‘transferred far-reaching powers over wiretapping, internet access, communications infrastructure, online censorship and digital traffic from the country’s telecommunications regulator to the executive-controlled Cyber Security Presidency (Siber Güvenlik Başkanlığ), a sweeping restructuring that is designed to further empower President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and institutionalize censorship and digital surveillance under the guise of national security…’

With the new ‘Terror-Free Turkey’ law just passed, one can ask: ‘Does this smell like ‘democracy’ – or does it just smell?’

The post A Torture-Free Turkey? – Part I appeared first on iKurd News.

An Interview: Sheri Laizer talks with Arthur Cairn

Sheri Laizer | Exclusive to iKurd.net

Introduction

I spoke to Arthur Cairn, a young Western professional, who spent several weeks traveling through North Kurdistan. His recent visit to the region included Hakkari, Van, Diyarbakır, Mardin, Midyat and some of the surrounding areas.

During the trip, he related how he encountered an extensive Turkish military presence with an embedded infrastructure that continues to shape and, at times, dominate everyday life for the region’s majority Kurds.

Throughout the journey, he said that he experienced remarkable hospitality from the Kurds who shared their perspectives on Kurdish identity, language, conflict and any prospects for peace with him. I asked Arthur the following questions:

What was your first notable experience when traveling in North Kurdistan?

When I first arrived at the airport, I went to pick up my luggage. Whilst waiting for my bag to come out on the conveyer belt I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and saw a young Kurdish man in his twenties stood there. He asked if I was European and what I was doing there.

He was very friendly and genuinely interested in my answers because he couldn’t understand why I’d be in Kurdistan. Before I left the airport, he told me that I should be extremely careful because people will be highly suspicious of me and would very likely think that I was a spy. He gave me his number and told me that if I get into any difficulties or need any help I should call him right away.

This ended up being a common theme during the trip. I visited many cities and everywhere I went I met Kurdish people who wanted to give me their number in case I ran into trouble with the authorities and needed their help. I went home with a phone full of contacts from across Kurdistan.

When I told one Kurd that I was planning to visit Hakkari he strongly advised me not to go: the region was under strict surveillance due to ‘terror’ threats and the ongoing regional conflict.

He believed I would draw a lot of adverse attention as a Westerner in the Kurdistan region and that I would be suspected of planning to join the YPG. In his words, “Turkey takes these things very seriously and the justice system you are used to is very different to the Turkish one. Even if you are innocent it takes a long time to prove it.”

On one of the days I spoke a little Kurmanji when checking into the accommodation, which really surprised the person working behind the desk. Later that evening we enjoyed a few drinks together and he was asking more about why I had been speaking Kurmanji to him.

I explained that I was in Kurdistan so I wanted to try and speak some Kurmanji to Kurdish people wherever I could. He appreciated this and then went on to tell me that there had been another time where some people from France had stayed there and they had spoken excellent Kurmanji. They had been asking a lot of questions about Kurdish politics, and it made him nervous, suspecting that they were in fact with the YPG.

Did people want to speak with you as a Western traveller?

People constantly wanted to speak to me. In urban and rural areas locals would invite me to their homes to rest and meet their families. In the cities, shop owners would proudly invite me in to sit for a cup of tea, refusing to accept a single lira. Out and about in the streets, people would walk over to me to strike up a conversation wanting to know where I was from and what I was doing there. I spoke to random people throughout the day every day I was there.

After very brief interactions, locals would insist that I take down their number in case I needed any help from them further down the line or if I just wanted to hang out with them.

I remember one day I was at a madrassa, and I got talking with one gentleman. I spoke a few words in Kurmanji and he was overcome with joy. He asked if he could take me on a drive to see a few spots and meet some of his friends so he could show them a Westerner that knew a few words of their mother tongue.

I am generally a most cautious traveller when it comes to interacting with strangers abroad, but all of these interactions were pure and genuine. People were delighted to meet a Western traveller in their area and to have the opportunity to share their culture and proudly say “Welcome to Kurdistan”.

Would you describe the region as militarised, and if so, for what purpose, given the PKK’s (unilateral) ceasefire?

It was the most militarised area I have yet visited. The impression that I was left with was that the militarisation created a sense of fear and control.

The most poignant moment illustrating this was when I was sat outside a café in the city of Hakkari drinking tea with the new friends I had made.

We spent several hours sat outside this seemingly idyllic café. Birds were chirping as they flew between the trees above our heads whilst a stream gently flowed through the lands below.

Little Kurdish boys and girls were giggling and laughing as they stumbled around the playground near to us. But this was all against a steady background sound of gunfire echoing through the mountains throughout the afternoon. It was such a ludicrous juxtaposition that seemed to bother only me…

Eventually, I asked the guys I was with what the shooting was. They simply shrugged. ‘Maybe they are fighting. Maybe they are practicing. Probably, it’s just to scare us. This is how life here is. It happens all the time. This is all we know.’

I remember looking back over at the little boys and girls, playing against the backdrop sound of gunfire, feeling a real sadness in my heart. They were so used to the sounds of war that it meant nothing to them. I remember thinking this is not how children should have to grow up.

Roughly how many stop and search points did you encounter?

I cannot remember how many stop and search points there were between the various places I visited because I passed through so many. I would estimate that I passed through dozens between Diyarbakır, Mardin, Van, Hakkari and Midyat.

I travelled by a combination of shared taxi (dolmuş), coach and car. I was probably stopped 15 times in total by the military. Some checkpoints we passed through without getting searched.

I saw people being taken out from their vans so that the back of the vehicle could be opened and then searched. The luggage section of the coaches I was traveling on were also opened on some occasions and dogs were used to search there.

The most intensely controlled section of the route was that which lay between Hakkari and Kızıltepe. I was stopped five times on a single journey: Each time a soldier, sometimes several soldiers, and always armed, boarded the coach and carried a handheld device to either scan or take a photo of the passengers’ Turkish ID cards.

Some soldiers just inspected my ID because I was traveling with a passport. But at other times they took photos of the passport. I was questioned about where I was going and why I was traveling in the region.

I made friends with Kurds on most journeys. They were very quick to reassure me or give me notice of upcoming checkpoints so I could prepare myself. At these checkpoints, they would translate for me or explain to the soldiers on my behalf that I was just a tourist.

I got the impression that they expected me to face scrutiny at the checkpoints. I remember one time a young guy, much to my protest, got off the coach with me significantly earlier than his own stop because he wanted to make sure I had no issues getting to my connecting bus without problems. He wouldn’t take no for an answer

What was the body language of the checkpoint operators like?

No smiles. No small talk. Disdain. Figuratively and literally, they were looking down their noses at the people travelling when examining their ID cards. Some of the soldiers at the checkpoints took a particular interest in me.

In Van and Hakkari I didn’t encounter any other foreign travellers, whether in the cities or on public transport. The checkpoint operators took photos of my ID and questioned me: Where I was from? Why I was here? Where was I going? Had I visited Iraqi Kurdistan? All my passport stamps were individually checked. They were aggressive when they believed I was missing certain stamps.

I remember one soldier told me that I was an incredibly brave person for traveling alone in the region. However, the irony of this was that I had not felt scared at all in Kurdistan. I was greeted with intense kindness and hospitality from the Kurds I met. The only time I truly felt scared was when I was faced with armed troops interrogating me when I was only going about my business.

Can you describe the structure of the checkpoints?

Most of the checkpoints appeared to be permanent features of the landscape. At a minimum there would normally be a booth but often there was also a sizable building for the soldiers. Most checkpoints had armoured vehicles which appeared to have heavy machine guns or rockets mounted on the back.

The checkpoints themselves were heavily fortified. There were tall and thick concrete slabs positioned on either side of where the vehicles stopped. The booths were also reinforced with concrete. Along the roads you could also see what appeared to be small outposts or observation towers which were maybe two stories high, also reinforced with thick concrete slabs. The entrance to the booths seemed to have what I would describe as stackable-looking metal shields that had slits for observation or shooting through.

Some of the checkpoints were completely impassable and necessitated getting searched. A single lane led up to the checkpoint where you were forced to stop. You would not be able to turn around or pass by if you were trying to avoid it.

There was also a large presence of military bases, particularly around Hakkari. I was driven past one where I was told that thousands of soldiers were stationed within.

I was also told that Kurdish people could, and did serve, in the Turkish military, but that Kurds would not serve as soldiers on the checkpoints in the Hakkari region.

Do any mobile checkpoints appear to be random?

There were some non-permanent checkpoints where heavily armed soldiers were stationed supported by armoured vehicles positioned or deployed at strategic points such as at bridges, ready to pull people over.

I also noticed that there was a significant presence of traffic police in the North Kurdistan region – much more than anywhere else I had visited before. When I was in Hakkari there would be random points in the city where the traffic police would pull cars over.

One time I was getting a lift from someone when they were pulled over. They had to provide their details to the traffic officer who then ran checks using a small handheld device before letting us go. I asked the driver about this, and he said it was a common occurrence.

In comparison with earlier trips you’ve made to this area did you see an increased or diminished military presence?

This trip was my first time visiting North Kurdistan. I have previously travelled in Iraqi Kurdistan where I passed through security checkpoints around Erbil, Sulaimani and Halabja. I am aware that the checkpoints in Iraqi Kurdistan are rather notorious for people who are trying to evade the authorities and can pose difficulties if you do not have the right identity documents.

Based on my recent experience, I would say the military checkpoints are considerably more significant in North Kurdistan than in Iraqi Kurdistan and far more frequent.

More soldiers are stationed at these checkpoints and they are heavily armed. Most checkpoints also have armoured vehicles stationed close by. Some even have dogs. The searches of vehicles, checking of ID cards and questioning is also significantly more intense. Some checkpoints are completely impassable without getting stopped.

Based on what I observed at the checkpoints, I found it difficult to imagine how someone wanted by the Turkish authorities could travel through the region undetected or anonymously.

The military bases were a constant feature scarring the beautiful natural landscape. One Kurd I was traveling with joked with me saying that the military take the most beautiful spots for the views.

I remember passing military bases set in really stunning parts of the countryside that completely defaced the landscape. They appeared to have rubbish pits down the side of hills on which the bases were built. Piles of burning, discarded, rubbish cascaded down into the valleys below.

Rocky roadsides and concrete fortifications would have large, crudely painted Turkish flags painted on the sides.

Did you see any protests when you were there?

One day, I was traveling between two major cities on a dolmus. The highway I was on passes through a small Kurdish village. As we approached the village a peaceful protest broke out on the highway bringing traffic to a standstill. An incident had occurred the week before where someone from the village was killed or seriously injured. (I cannot recall which it was now). The dolmuş I was on was maybe 10 vehicles down from the blockade.

We were stationary for around an hour whilst traffic police tried to disperse the people who were protesting for justice for the victims. I remember at one point I looked out of the window of the dolmuş and I saw around a dozen soldiers on the other side of the road marching down towards the protesters with automatic rifles in their hands.

The protesters cleared off as the soldiers approached. We then carried on with the journey. As we passed, I could see armoured vehicles parked near the protestors. I did not see if any arrests were made but I later discussed the incident with Kurds I met and they had heard about the protest and the events behind it.

Did Kurdish civilians seem scared to discuss politics?

Once when I was staying in a Kurdish guest house I was told by the owner, who was himself Kurdish, that I should be careful around the other person staying in the same room. He told me that I should not discuss Kurdish politics or speak any Kurmanji in front of him because the owner did not trust him and was scared that he might report us if he heard us speaking about such things. Later in the evening the owner told me that he wanted to upgrade my room for free because he was still suspicious of the other person and did not want me to have to stay with him because of the views he suspected he held.

On another occasion I was out on a drive with a Kurdish man and when we were coming back to Hakkari he asked me to hide my cameras. He was worried about me being seen with cameras by the military as he thought it would lead to questioning and potential searches.

Did you encounter many expressions of Kurdish identity?

On the surface, it initially felt like nothing was Kurdish and everything was Turkish in most places I visited. I remember visiting a famous landmark in Van. I was looking at the postcards for sale. There were postcards of people wearing traditional Turkish clothes – not Kurdish clothes, despite Van being one of the highest Kurdish majority cities.

When I turned the postcode over, the words ‘printed in Istanbul’ stared back at me. Very telling. It made me feel sad because it isn’t just a case of not allowing Kurdish culture to be celebrated at Kurdish heritage sites but almost it being replaced. It got me thinking…

I was curious then about what percentage of the city’s population was Kurdish. I knew it was very large. I asked someone I met and apparently Turkey does not collect ethnicity data in the census. Like I said previously, nothing is Kurdish, everything is Turkish. Obviously when you scratch below the surface and discuss things with people the reality is very different.

I regularly saw jamadanis (Kurdish headwear) for sale in Diyarbakır. At one point I saw the red, yellow and green national colours. I always associated this with Rojava and the YPG, so I was extremely surprised to see this on sale publicly. However, I didn’t see anyone wearing this openly and most shops did not sell anything with this design.

There were no Kurdish flags at all. When I was in Diyarbakır, I came across a shop that had “Kurdistan” football shirts. This was not for an official team of any kind, but it actually said “Kurdistan” on them which surprised me. This was not common and I only remember one shop selling it. I was chatting to the owners for a while and I asked, do you support Amedspor. The owner laughed and walked me back into the shop, tapped the shirt and said my team is Kurdistan.

The football team Amedspor was extremely popular. Many people walking around Diyarbakır wore Amedspor merchandise. It appeared that Kurds were using it as a vehicle of Kurdish expression and identity in the absence of being able to do this without persecution by the Turkish authorities.

One person I spoke to told me the name change was extremely controversial. Commentators will sometimes refuse to refer to Amedspor by its name and will instead call it “the team from Diyarbakır” when discussing it on television.

When I was walking through the city numerous shops were selling Amedspor merchandise. Banners and signs for the club were draped everywhere. The Amedspor football shirts that I saw for sale frequently incorporated the Kurdish colours of red, yellow, green and white into the designs. The kits also featured Kurmanji.

Did you see, hear, or sense any evidence of a ‘peaceful’ transition between the Kurds and the Turkish state?

It was mixed. A lot of people just didn’t seem to think it was going to happen. They thought it was all for show.

On one occasion I was in a very rural area, and I got talking to a group of Kurdish men who invited me to sit and have tea with them. This kind of invitation wasn’t out of the ordinary, so I joined them. We were chatting for quite a while and got along very well. After speaking for a time, one man pulled out his phone and turned it around to show me a photo. On the screen I saw two soldiers holding the PKK flag. He had a big cheeky grin on his face and said, “This is my flag, do you know what this flag is?” laughing with his friends.

It completely took me off guard and I looked over the phone at him and said, ‘Yes, that is the PKK flag’. The mood then changed very quickly and the smile fell from his face. He turned and started talking to his friends in Kurmanji and I could understand that they were talking about the PKK. I swiftly thanked them for the tea and made my excuses to leave. The incident threw me off. I was left wondering if he had expected me to recognise the flag or if he was just testing my awareness. I did not expect to come upon such an open expression of support for the PKK during my trip.

When I spoke to people in Hakkari, for example, I was told that there used to be a huge amount of support for the PKK in the area. One man told me that twenty years ago, the majority of people supported the PKK. However, this has since reduced significantly.

I spent an evening with another man who told me that when he was younger the PKK came to his father and demanded that he gave his son to fight for them. His father was told it is his duty to fight for Kurdistan. You either need to give us money or a son to fight.

The father initially built a secret room to hide his son. Eventually the father paid money so his son did not have to fight. This same man told me that when he was at university, he had to hide the fact that he was Kurdish from his course mates. He was beaten by Turkish people throughout his education from childhood through to adulthood just because he was Kurdish.

I remember another young Kurdish man told me, “Us Kurds have always been fighters. It is all we know. But we need to stop fighting. We need to become doctors, lawyers and teachers. We need to move on from this way of life. That is why I am training to be a teacher. We need to do more than fight. Before this I was a soldier for the Turkish state. Why would I want to fight my own people?”

One day I was on a coach journey where the other passengers were mostly Kurds with some Turkish soldiers that had been picked up from outside the military bases. We stopped a few times for rest breaks and food on this journey. At one point I was sat at a table with a Kurd who could speak English, so we shared a meal.

There was not much space at the rest stop so a Turkish man came over and sat with us. He couldn’t speak any English. After a while, whilst still sat at the table, the Kurd told me “You know that guy sat next to you is a soldier. They treat us like shit. They call us terrorists. They give us no respect. But look how I let him sit here with us and said nothing. Look how I smile and share things with him. Look at the respect we give to them.”

Did you encounter much pro-Turkish propaganda?

I have never seen so many flags in my life. They were everywhere. I came across streets completely adorned with flag bunting. Street signs had the Turkish flag on them. The majority of cities, villages and military posts, would have a flagpole flying the Turkish flag high above it. The sheer size of some of the flags was mind boggling.

What I found particularly interesting was that many Kurdish-owned businesses had the Turkish flag on display inside the premises hidden away from the public eye. For example, on their desk in the office. I could gauge the politics of some of these individuals, and it made no sense to me. I suspected that it might have been for show, or out of fear in case of a visit from the Turkish authorities.

In the hotels I stayed in the only English-speaking channel on TV was 24/7 Turkish news, which was fascinating to watch because it was very clear how Turkey was trying to position itself on the global stage and the nationalist agenda it was promoting.

Every time I passed a flag it felt like the Turkish state was trying to prove a point – that I was in Turkey. It had the opposite effect.

Every single blood-red flag I saw was a stark reminder to me that where I was, was Kurdistan.

Sheri Laizer, a Middle East and North African expert specialist and well known commentator on the Kurdish issue. She is a senior contributing writer for iKurd.net. More about Sheri Laizer see below.

The post A Western Gentleman Travels Through North Kurdistan: Hospitality and Checkpoints appeared first on iKurd News.

The Full Black Veil (Niqab) Revives in Syria’s Universities — and Beyond

Against the natural world, the black veil that entirely covers a woman including her eyes, had been abolished from Syrian universities in July 2010. Under the new Islamist regime of Ahmed al-Sharaa it announces itself back with vigour.

Sheri Laizer | Exclusive to iKurd.net

Female graduates are invisible in niqab – in a video circulating online of a graduation ceremony from Hama University’s Arts and Humanities Faculty, July 20026.

In 2010, teaching staff and students were barred by the Assad government from wearing the niqab at universities as it was thought to undermine the secular identity of the country. The outlawed variant had still showed the eyes. 1

Under the new Syrian (Islamist) regime of former Al Qaeda Emir and Jabhat al-Nusra chief, Ahmet al-Sharaa, the niqab’s resurgence has reached back into Syrian universities but even the eyes are concealed.

Scenes from recent graduation ceremonies show female conservatives wearing the traditional graduation headboard but with a full-face veil that even covers the eyes. Most of those endorsing this costume also go to the extreme of donning black gloves. No flesh is exposed to the light of day.

Female graduates pose together with a complete absence of all personal identity: their identity is that of the community of Believers and a homogenous identity.

The trend towards increasing female covering had first been enforced under al-Sharaa’s leadership when he controlled Idlib before seizing the capital with the help of CIA funding in December 2024. 2

What is the reason behind the push to adopt the Sharia dress code? ‘Modesty’ – according to a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam as regurgitated by hardline preacher, the Egyptian extremist, Hani Dahab, AKA Sheikh al-Dhanabi.

The Egyptian preacher joined the ‘jihad’ in Syria in 2012. Al Jumhuriya claimed he signed up with al-Sharaa’s Al Nusra Front after an initial affiliation with ISIS and became operational on the coast under the nom de guerre of Sheikh al-Dhahabi.

Injured in 2015, he enjoyed medical treatment in Turkey like other jihadists that took advantage of the porous Syrian-Turkish border with official Turkish help in this period.4 See also: Hiding in Plain Sight: Turkey’s ISIS links, Al Baghdadi’s Last Refuge and the Jihadist-controlled ‘Safe Zone.’

Since regime change in December 2024, Sheikh al-Dhahabi has posted openly under his revealed name of Hani Daab, with his activities focused on the push for Sharia clothing proselytizing in Idlib, Aleppo, Hama, Homs, Eastern Ghouta, al-Mazzah district in Damascus, Hasaka, Deir ez-Zour and Latakia.5

Hani Daab has also been spearheading the Sharia dress code campaign in public spaces and institutions including hospitals and universities. He distributes niqabs openly while seeking cash donations to further perpetuate his message.

Forcing girls to wear Islamic Abaya was a practice firmly installed in Idlib under al-Sharaa’s group. Even displaced women trying to flee into Turkey were forced to wear it just to transit Idlib. Likewise, women returning to visit family member still living or sheltering in Idlib were compelled to cover themselves up or face abuses, including imprisonment.

As background to the present campaign, it is worth recalling a 2017 feature article published in Enab Baladi that noted at the time: “Coercion and imposition of a certain dressing code differ from one province to another according to the Faction which controls the village or city. According to Enab Baladi’s reporter in Idlib, Women Advocacy Office was established by Fatah al-Sham Front, formerly al-Nusra front, which makes its activity concentrated in the faction’s deployment areas…”6

Ahmet al-Sharaa may pretend to his Western backers that his Wahhabist-Salafist gaols and ideology7are behind him but in practice his association with proponents of extreme religious conservatism speak otherwise. Short courses in Islamic theory and law are now conflated with full secular, academic degrees. Male and female students are likely to become increasingly segregated on campus. Extremist students are also refusing to change their niqabs for regular dress, openly advocating its spread. It is symbolic of the attitudes that give rise to its acceptance.

Once banned

Banned in 2010 by the previous Syrian government under Bashar al-Assad the niqab is back and it is being touted as desirable. This stance does not appear in isolation from the ideology that inspires it.

Despite a highly complex transnational and internecine conflict raging across Syria from March 2011 to March 2025, spanning almost 14 years and leaving more than 656,493 dead, some 200, 000 of them civilians 8 much of the fighting revolved upon turf wars between rival Islamic militias – it was not just a war between opposition forces and the state.

This became abundantly clear at the time of the staged chemical weapons incidents through the involvement of foreign groups who were focused on regime change in the guise of civil defence, or aid and emergency care like the White Helmets. The latter took shelter with Al Nusra and other militias in order to operate in jihadist-held areas.9

Differing little, if at all in terms of ideology, the rival Islamist militias claimed to be fighting for jihad in Syria (often overlapping inside Iraq) and to be guiding believers on the ‘true’ path.

Idlibisation

In Idlib when the city was governed by Ahmed al-Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its ‘Salvation Government’ women accused of adultery and/or prostitution being stoned to death in the street were shown in videos disseminated online.

Hundreds of people that opposed Al-Nusra/HTS and the Salvation Government were kidnapped, imprisoned, abused, tortured and killed. 10 No price has been paid at leadership level for these crimes nor for the massacres of minorities since.

In a 2022 report released by the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) on the most notable Hay’at Tahrir al Sham (HTS) violations from the establishment of Jabhat al Nusra to 2022 it “reveals that Hay’at Tahrir al Sham continues to commit multiple types of human rights violations, mainly in its detention centers. The report documents the deaths of at least 505 civilians at the hands of HTS, including 71 children, 77 women, and 28 deaths due to torture, in addition to at least 2,327 individuals who are still arbitrarily detained or forcibly disappeared by HTS…”11

ISIS declared Al Sharaa an apostate

ISIS accuses al-Sharaa of not being sufficiently true to the Islamic path, particularly in his having engaged in bilateral talks with the Americans, the European leaders and on again, off again, with Netanyahu’s Israel despite the latter’s ongoing occupation of border areas between the two countries. 12

That critique aside, Daesh’s means to achieving its goals and the goals themselves (of a functioning Islamic State governed by Sharia law) differ very little from those of their former ally turned foe.

Women’s subservience

The niqab is constructed to envelop women in a physical and ideological constraint that projects the role of the female as subservient to the male. The ideology is widely propounded in the Salafist schools in Saudi and Yemen that declare that a man unrelated to a woman must neither see nor touch any part of her. Many transnationals that undertook jihad in Syria studied at the Sharia schools in Yemen.13

Ahmed al Sharaa will not abolish the niqab. His wife, Latifa al-Droubi, does not cover her face but it is likely that she may temporarily have had to do so when her husband was still an Emir with Al Qaeda and deployed to lead Al Nusra. He recalled of their earlier years spent together in the mountains how Latifa “lived with me in 49 different homes and followed me from caves to shelters, even chicken coops,” said al-Sharaa …”14 They had married a year into the war in 2012. Al Nusra was declared a branch of Al Qaeda in Syria in January 2012.

Latifa al-Droubi now walks the same path as Emine Erdogan, the wife of Turkish Islamist president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Both ‘first ladies’ appear in public fully ensconced in hijab. Latifa was shown graduating from the Faculty of Arts & Humanities of Idlib University wearing a black hijab and mortar board in 2025. She was a student from the so-called “Victory and Liberation Class of 2025.”

Tik Tok Extremism

Extolling extremist Islamic values in the 21st century can be seen as a rather hypocritical practice: those who do so will also generally showcase that they use the latest smart phones, own flash cars and wear designer trainers.

Numerous women donning the burka, hijab, or niqab pose on Tik Tok in provocative guises; some reveal flirting eyes enlarged with false eyelashes and black kohl, others show off their Botox-plumped lips pouting in pseudo-sexy display yet carefully covering their hair willing to attract conservative Muslim males despite the territorial possessiveness and ultimate controls this would subject them to after marriage.

Warnings of internal conflict

The niqab-displaying ‘graduates’ in Syrian universities are emerging in under two years into Al Sharaa’s rule. They should serve as a warning that worse is. likely to come.

Women played a very significant role across the wider Syrian opposition movement hoping to bring greater freedoms to Syria and across the region. Syrian Kurdish women that courageously joined the ranks of all female fighters in the JPG to combat ISIS became a real phenomenon.

Faced with ‘integration’ into the new Syrian forces that includes many extremist elements who proudly killed, mutilated, raped and abused several of their fighters during bitter battles at the beginning of the year, as highlighted in Aleppo, their future looks difficult.

In a video circulating on social media since Saturday, a fighter on the second floor of a damaged building is seen throwing a female fighter’s body into the street while soldiers nearby shout “Allahu akbar”, or God is the greatest…Some are heard insulting the dead woman, whom the Kurds identified as a member of their internal security forces, saying the incident took place in Sheikh Maqsoud.16 The Syrian Islamists in the New Syrian Army forces insulted the women as pigs and infidels in language reminiscent of Al Nusra and of ISIS in dehumanising the enemy.17

Imrali’s role

Imprisoned Kurdish leader, Abdullah Öcalan’s vision of so-called ‘democratic societies’ shunning ethnic nationalism remains essentially socialist and secular. Congratulations on Al Sharaa’s victory were left to Mazlum Abdi, commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces that encompassed the YPG and YPJ Kurdish fighters (along with some Arab units).

However, Öcalan’s idealism hatched in custody on Imrali Island sits badly with the centrist pan-Islamic vision of Ahmet al-Sharaa and his HTS-based cabinet. For decades the PKK had been sheltered by Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad, in Damascus as a card against Turkey. Öcalan headed the training schools there for twenty years. He warned in a public statement dubbed as protocols for the resolution of the Kurdish issue in Turkey (highly complementary to the Turkish foe), “If democratic conditions are not created, it is not inconceivable that Ahmed al‑Sharaa could also take on dictatorial traits in the future.”18

Öcalan said nothing in this long, anecdotal spiel about the Islamisation of Syrian women despite having always expressed admiration for women’s role in his ‘democratic society’ project.

YPJ cadres are taught to embrace and expound Öcalan’s ‘philosopy’ during and after their training, just as are their male counterparts in the YPG and Revolutionary Youth.

Recruitment is continuing into these forces even as four brigades from the umbrella SDF sign up to ‘integrate’ into the Syrian Army – the same armed forces that view them as ‘pigs’ and as the enemy of Islam.19 Some derive from the very same ISIS groups that the SDF battled with so fatally to keep out of Rojava. They have been seen desecrating fallen Kurdish fighters’ graves. They particularly revile ‘liberated’ women.

1 https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/world/middleeast/20briefs-SYRIA.html
2 https://english.enabbaladi.net/archives/2017/09/syrians-clothing-following-whose-religion/
3 https://www.instagram.com/p/DZwbZ2oMcRU/
4 https://www.lejdd.fr/International/Les-mysterieux-fichiers-de-Daech-776969-3157277
5 https://syrianobserver.com/society/meet-the-egyptian-jihadist-leading-a-niqab-promotion-campaign-inside-syrian-universities.html
6 https://english.enabbaladi.net/archives/2017/09/syrians-clothing-following-whose-religion/
7 https://www.ide.go.jp/library/Japanese/Publish/Reports/Seisaku/pdf/201307_mide_08.pdf
8 https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/syrian-war-human-toll-deaths-disappearances-mass-graves-displacement/
9 https://archive.sana.sy/en/?p=145238
10 https://snhr.org/blog/2022/01/31/57274/
11 Ibid.
12 https://thenewregion.com/posts/4652
13 https://newlinesinstitute.org/middle-east-center/isis-in-yemen-caught-in-a-regional-power-game-2/
14 https://www.wionews.com/world/who-is-latifa-al-droubi-syrian-leader-ahmed-al-sharaa-s-wife-what-you-should-know-1749451731147
15 https://thearabweekly.com/syrias-first-lady-makes-public-appearance-raising-questions-about-future-role
16 https://www.newarab.com/news/syria-rights-groups-urge-probe-video-apparent-abuses-aleppo
17 https://www.facebook.com/reel/754293664406100
18 https://ocalanvigil.net/2026/01/ocalan-without-democracy-in-syria-al-sharaa-will-also-become-a-dictator/
19 https://ikurd.net/debunked-pkk-leader-ocalan-2026-07-01

Sheri Laizer, a Middle East and North African expert specialist and well known commentator on the Kurdish issue. She is a senior contributing writer for iKurd.net. More about Sheri Laizer see below.

The post Niqab makes a comeback in Syrian universities and beyond appeared first on iKurd News.

Iraq’s New Prime Minister, Ali Faleh Kazim Al-Zaidi: From the Cradle of Al-Da’wa to the Peak of Iraq’s Rentier System

Sheri Laizer | Exclusive to iKurd.net

Ali Goes to Washington

Ali al-Zaidi recalls, “I was ten years old, and I remember my father’s group. They had faith in the Da’wa (Islamic Call) approach, and their mission was more Islamic than political …“ 1

Prime Minister Ali al-Zaid’s father was Faleh Kazim al-Zaidi. His younger son’s recollection dates back to 1996 (Ali was born in 1986) and the period when Al Da’wa, its armed wing, the Badr Brigade and SCIRI (the Al-Hakim family-led Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq) were plotting the overthrow of the secular Iraqi government.

Backed by Iran, then as now, the Shi’a militants conducted bombings of Iraqi embassies abroad, assassinations, and at home an organised rebellion against the state through the Shi’a shrine cities and ideological revolution following in the path of Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Khomeini had been a former refugee in Iraq’s Najaf protected by Saddam Hussein from snatch and grab by the Shah’s Savak agents. 2 The system the first Supreme Leader put in place – known as Rule by the Jurist Cleric (Velayet-e Faqeh) was to be exported universally, implemented in Iraq and across the Shi’a crescent. Ali al-Zaidi was born into this ideology and into a conservative religious Shi’a family in Dhi Qar governorate. Details are still very sketchy.

Just as the clerics and the militia leaders turned politician amassed wealth through power and position in the nexus, so too did young Ali. The latest Prime Minister is a product of the rentier system known as Muhasasa, or power-sharing government based on quotas. The system was put in place in Iraq after the overthrow of the former secular order after the US war of 2003 and short-lived Coalition Provisional Administration (CPA) .

Ali al-Zaidi the 8th prime minister of the ‘new’ Iraq

Having passed the parliamentary blocs’ approval process on May 14, 2026, Ali al-Zaidi’s path remained paved in gold. The banker businessman magnate grown rich from state contracts has it all at his feet.

Al Janoob Islamic Bank for Investment and Finance – Ali al-Zaidi, the Banking Magnate

Ali al-Zaidi originally oversaw the management of the economic committee of the State of Law Coalition (led by Nouri al-Maliki and embarked upon his personal business expansion from it.

The economic committees are responsible for coordinating and distributing (government) contracts to companies linked to – or close to – their parties. He thus gets a cut or share of each of the (state) contracts.

Sources say “This positioning placed him within one of the largest areas of state expenditure, making his commercial activity directly intertwined with state food policy, alongside a broader shift in influence within the Ministry of Trade in favour of Shia political forces…”

“During the premiership of Mustafa Al-Kadhimi (2020–2022), this presence expanded significantly, as he became one of the main contractors in the food basket project, whose annual value is estimated at around five billion dollars…” 3

Ali al-Zaidi also operated the Al-Janoob Islamic Bank (South Bank) that was sanctioned in 2018 by the US treasury although he was not fingered. The bank was then excluded from the dollar exchange banking system in 2024. The US sanctions were based on allegations of Al Janoob’s links to Shi’a militias linked with the IRGC, namely the Imam Ali Brigades and the Hezbollah Brigades.

He was chairman of Al Janoob, one of eight Iraqi commercial banks banned from engaging in US dollar transactions since early 2024. The ban was imposed by the Central Bank of Iraq at the direction of the US Treasury and Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which cited concerns over fraud, money laundering and other illegal use of US currency. The Cradle claims Ali al-Zaidi had experience also ‘serving as a financial attaché at the US Embassy in Baghdad in earlier days. 4

It was al-Janoob Bank that operated the transactions of Al Awees and the PDS system. Ali al-Zaidi retained 9,90% of the bank’s capital and with other family members controlled most of its activities. 5

Large sums are still owed to PM Ali Al-Zaidi by Iraqi state institutions, estimated at more than four trillion dinars, from Ministry of Trade contracts and supply agreements with his Al-Awees Company.

His activity is interdependent with the state and to the benefit of both sides. 6 7

His own CV claimed he provided experience in “banking management, financial governance, credit and investment policies, risk management and enhancing confidence in the banking sector”.

At the National Holding Company (according to al-Jazeera, a conglomerate established in 2017 with interests spanning agriculture, real estate, banking, logistics, and renewable energy 8,) he promoted “multisector investment” and private-sector job creation. In education, he argued that universities must be linked to labour market needs and that “education is the backbone of building a modern state”.

This is because he is also the chair of the board of Al Shaab University and the Ishtar Medical Institute.

Al Zaidi’s company, the Al Awees (al-Oways) Group for Trade General Contracting claims that it has dealt with investments of up to $500 million. It holds long-term contracts to supply staple foods to Iraq’s Public Distribution System (PDS) – the long-subsidised state ration card programme.

Not only does it supply food to millions of needy people, it also has the contract for the Iraqi Army. Al-Oways Group, worked with the Ministry of Trade, where he managed the administration of the national ration card system. Accusations of corruption are never far behind.

Al Zaidi is also the chair of the board for the Al Watania Holding Group.

He is the Owner of Taawon Hypermarket Baghdad shopping malls,

In media, he owns Dijlah TV, which is managed by his brother Professor Hassan Al-Zaidi, the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Dijlah Satellite Channels Group. The channel reportedly increased programming supportive of the al-Sudani government adding a media dimension to the two men’s network of influence.

Ali al- Zaidi also owns the Sun Quick company, alongside the hypermarket network importing juices and dairy products through his companies.

In the real estate sector, Al-Zaidi reportedly owns a portfolio of projects and commercial complexes, some of which are built on state-owned land acquired through undisclosed arrangements, including a complex on the Baghdad Airport Road.

Inside circles believe Iran had supported his appointment through back channels to avoid him appearing as a candidate directly aligned with them. His alliance dates back through his father and al-Da’wa. His father died as an enemy of the Ba’athist state.

The source suggested that the four-day delay in Iran’s congratulations to al-Zaidi after his appointment was a deliberate move to deflect suspicion about his relationship with Tehran, especially given the sensitivity of the American position.9

Religious family figures in the power grid

Mrs Ibtihal Qassed Al-Zaidi

Al-Zaidi also has family ties within the intersection of religion and Shi’a-based politics, including his female cousin, a Koranic Studies scholar, Mrs Ibtihal Qassed Al-Zaidi. This religious official had previously held the post of Minister of Construction, Housing, Municipalities and Public Works (2015-2018).

She was the Minister for Women’s Affairs in 2012 under Nouri al-Maliki, and was widely criticised at the time as being a woman who did little for women. (The position had previously been led by KDP official, Hoshyar Zebari.) Ibtihal al-Zaidi sought to increase access to jobs for women from ‘martyr’ families and widows from after the 2003 invasion.10

Back in December 2011, Nouri al-Maliki’s cabinet had approved a new quota system to improve female employment in government agencies stipulating that 50 percent female should be appointed in the Health and Education ministries with a 30 percent quota for other ministries. Martyrs’ widows would be prioritized for employment in government agencies, Ibtisam herself said.

“Men and women not equal”, claimed Ibtihal al-Zaidi

In 2012, while speaking with a local news organization, Ibtihal al-Zaidi had announced, “I am against equality between men and woman…If women are equal to men they are going to lose a lot. Up to now I go with the power of the man in society. If I go out of my house, I have to tell my husband where I am going. This does not mean diluting the role of woman in society but, on the contrary, it will bring more power to the woman as a mother who looks after and brings up their children”. 11

The Organisation for Woman’s Emancipation in Iraq condemned Ibtihal Al-Zaidi’s statement and called for the dissolution of her department at that time.12

In 2013, al-Maliki downsized his cabinet, leaving al-Zaidi in place as the only woman. After al-Maliki’s term as Prime minister ended in 2015, Ibtihal al-Zaidi also left the government.

MP ,Diaa Al-Zaidi, from al-Sudani’s list is also a close family member linked to new premier, Ali al-Zaidi.

Same tribe, same bank links – Shibl denies more

Shibl al-Zaidi owho comes from the same tribe as Ali al-Zaidi is the commander cum general secretary of the Imam Ali Brigades (Kata’ib al-Imam Ali) formed in 2014 in response to Ayatollah Ali Sistani’s general mobilisation call to war against ISIS in a celebrated fatwa. Shibl had formerly been active with the al-Mahdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr. He acted as the financial coordinator between the IRGC Quds Forces and the Hashd (Popular Mobilisation Forces) according to the US Treasury sanctions. The US added that he had facilitated Iraqi investments for the late Quds forces leader, Qassem Soleimani. 13

Head of Iraq’s Services Alliance (Khadamat Alliance) Shibl al- Zaidi, formed a new block inside the Coordination Framework with Badr’s Hadi al-Ameri, in December 2025. The merger was made to gain more seats in the next cabinet aiming to secure some 30 seats, according to the Badr Organisation.15

Anonymous Iraqi sources said al-Zaidi’s appointment to the premiership was facilitated by head of the Supreme Judicial Council, Faiq Zaidan, noting his close ties to outgoing Prime Minister, Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani. Zaidan, along with al-Sudani, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (AAH) leader, Qais al-Khazali, and Hikma Movement leader Ammar al-Hakim, (once of SCIRI) formed a new front to challenge former PM, and Al Da’wa leader, Nouri al-Maliki, to impede him from taking the premiership for a third time.

Jamal al-Karbouli

Ali Al-Zaidi was seen as a financial front for Mohammed al-Sudani. He bought al-Dijlah TV channel from Jamal al-Karbouli, for around $10 million, in deals said to be linked to al-Sudani, despite the channel officially remaining under al-Zaidi’s name.

Jamal Al Karbouli was among the fifty-odd MPs and officials arrested for corruption on June 9, 2026, ordered to repay 4.5 million to the Iraqi Red Crescent Society after he had diverted funds from a Saudi grant intended to benefit a Baghdad Hospital when in position as deputy chair of the organisation.16

He confessed. Jamal al-Karbouli currently faces accusations of misappropriating $4.5 million yet continues to move about freely in Iraq maintain ties with key political players and successive prime ministers. Iraqi current affairs researcher Nadir Mohammed says al-Karbouli “is just one example of a class of influential figures that emerged and consolidated power under the political forces that have dominated Iraq since 2003…The real test of al-Zaidi’s government in its first months will be its ability to arrest and prosecute major corruption.”17

June 2026-Former and sitting MPs, officials, arrested on corruption charges

A new anti-corruption campaign saw the light of day following with the sacking of Deputy Oil Minister, Adnan al-Jumaili, accused of offering al-Zaidi a $200 million bribe. Adnan al-Jumaili was detained after judicial authorities said they found nearly $10 million in cash in his possession, along with 40 properties, gold holdings, light and medium weapons, and large sums of Iraqi currency.

On June 7, Iraq’s Integrity Court requested that parliament lift the immunity of sitting MP, Hasnain al-Khafaji on accusations of extortion and influence peddling in exchange for financial gain.

Heads began rolling thereafter with some 47 ‘big fish’ (also called ‘corruption whales’ 18 arrested on corruption charges, On June 11, 2026, Iraqi newspaper al-Mada reported that Al Zaidi’s office had launched a fresh anti-corruption drive seeking the recovery of the largest amount of stolen public funds since 2003. A list compiled by the newly established Supreme Sovereign Council for Integrity, Oversight, and the Recovery of Public Funds includes individuals suspected of involvement in major corruption cases.

Some of those accused live abroad, (and/or have property in many foreign cities) while yet others remained in charge of major investment projects in all Iraq’s most lucrative economic sectors linked with endemic graft and mafia-like insider trading.

Leaked information claimed that the value of embezzled funds ranged between $150 billion and $250 billion, with some estimates placing the figure as high as $350 billion. Part of the figure has ostensibly been used to finance armed groups and influential politicians.

Among the biggest fish is Farhan al-Fartousi, the former head of Iraq’s State ports company, sacked in early June. The newspaper estimated that funds uncovered in the case exceeded 20 trillion Iraqi dinars, or roughly $13.3 billion and part of the money was used to finance political groups, fund investments abroad, and acquire large swathes of real estate in Baghdad.

Sitting MP, Alaa al-Haidari announced on June 10 that he had submitted a formal complaint to PM Ali al-Zaidi detailing what he described as serious violations and waste of public funds inside an oil company allegedly controlled by what he called a “new oil corruption kingpin.19

Under former Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, the authorities had arrested Nour Zuhair, the key suspect in the so-called “Heist of the Century.” But this was just part of a much wider story of graft amounting to between $700 billion and $1 trillion lost to corruption and mismanagement since regime change empowered the Shi’a militia and Kurdish leaders 2003. Zuhair had been the advisor to the former chair of the Parliamentary Finance Committee and held positions in Iraqi ports.

Next, under PM, Mohamed al-Sudani, MP Haitham al-Jubouri was also detained in connection with the Heist case. 20 Nour Zuhair was later released on bail, raising widespread doubts about the seriousness of the Sudani government’s actions.

Al-Jibouri had been an advisor to al-Sudani’s predecessor, PM Mustafa al-Kadhimi. A General Amnesty law was announced in response to recuperation of diverted funds in March 2025 under which both would be pardoned. “Following its ratification by (Kurdish) Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid, the law was published in the Iraqi Official Gazette on February 18, officially launching into effect its implementation. “21

According to political researcher, Salah al-Kubaisi, corruption in Iraq is a termite. 22 and not merely a failure in governance but “a structural feature of the political order itself, embedded in both the state and the system that governs it. Any claim of eliminating this type of corruption without fundamentally changing the structure of the political system and the way it operates is little more than a myth being sold to the public.” 23

Shibl al-Zaidi, head of Iraq’s Services (Khadamat) Alliance and the Kataib al-Imam Ali militia, said on Tuesday that Iraq remains trapped in a “cycle of violence and corruption,” blaming the political quota system and unchecked weapons for hindering state-building and weakening state institutions – Statement “There are parties that exploited public support and the sacrifices made by the resistance,” Zaidi said, adding that some groups carried out actions “contrary to religion and the law”24

Yet, the US Treasury in imposing sanctions on him and his group also accused the Imam al-Ali Brigades of war crimes including summary executions, torture, and theft. During the Siege of Amerli in 2014 they were shown brandishing heads severed from the bodies of enemy fighters. In video recorded, Shibl himself declared, “We’re coming to look for you. We will cut off your heads and make a mountain of your skulls.25

Other atrocity videos followed. 26 Now between 80 to 90 deputies in the Iraqi parliament are directly linked with militias. Controlling a third of the cabinet they enjoy the power of veto. Ali al-Zaidi was their chosen candidate to perpetuate the system of interdependence. He was born to it.

POSTSCRIPT
IRAQI OFFICIALS ARRESTED ON CORRUPTION CHARGES

The INA and other outlets published lists 27 as follow below. I have added in the details of their parties or positions. 28

Based on confessions made by the Deputy Minister of Oil, Adnan al-Jumaili, the following prominent officials were arrested by the Prime Minister’s elite Counter Terrorism (CTS) security forces in Operation Dawn raids on the Green Zone:

– Muthanna al-Samarrai, MP, head of the Azm Alliance

– Ziyad al-Janabi, MP, Siyada Coalition, Chairman of the Parliamentary Integrity Committee.

– Bahaa al-Nouri, MP, al-Sudani’s Reconstruction and Development Coalition

– Mohammed al-Karbouli, MP, Azm Alliance

– Ms. Alia Nassif, MP, al-Sudani’s Reconstruction and Development Coalition, Vice-Chair of the Parliamentary Integrity Committee.

– Mohammed Jamil al-Mayahi, MP, former Wasit governor

– Hassanein al-Khafaji, MP, al-Sudani’s Reconstruction and Development Coalition

– Abdul Rahman al-Luwaizi, MP, al-Sudani’s Reconstruction and Development Coalition

– Mudhar al-Karawi, MP, Siyada Coalition

– Ms. Hind al-Abbasi, MP

– Mohammed Farman al-Jubouri, MP, Azm Alliance.

– Ms. Bushra al-Qaisi, Sunni MP

– Mohammed al-Sayhoud, former MP, a relative of al-Sudani and former politician.

– Ali Maarij al-Bahady, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Oil for Distribution Affairs (also under US sanctions, accused of mixing Iraqi oil with Iranian oil to bypass US sanctions).

– Ibrahim Al-Sumaida’I, former government advisor to al-Sudani

Sheri Laizer, a Middle East and North African expert specialist and well known commentator on the Kurdish issue. She is a senior contributing writer for iKurd.net. More about Sheri Laizer see below.

The post Ali al-Zaidi from Da’wa to peak of Iraq’s rentier system appeared first on iKurd News.

The ‘peace process’ is a trap to bury Kurdish political goals in Turkey

Sheri Laizer | Exclusive to iKurd.net

More than any other actor, it is Abdullah Öcalan that has undone the PKK and with it the Kurdish cause that the PKK claimed to represent.

Much political and media fanfare has been made about the so-called ‘peace process’ between the PKK and the AKP government over the past year. On March 1, 2025 the PKK declared yet another unilateral ceasefire.

Captive PKK leader, Abdullah Öcalan, had called upon his party to devolve/dissolve itself and give up their weapons on February 27, 2025. The PKK imposed conditions to such ‘negotiations’ with the autocratic AKP government still led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan after 23 years. However, with their leader still held prisoner into his 27th year of virtual isolation on Imrali island many in the Kurdish elite remain wary about the sincerity of the Turkish side.

Öcalan had acted much the same in August 1999 announcing a ceasefire that generally lasted until 2004. At Newroz (Kurdish New Year) on 21 March 2013 he had again called on the PKK to lay down their weapons – this time in the name of the ‘solution process.’

The July 20, 2015, Suruç massacre in Kurdish Urfa put paid to that: an Islamist suicide bomber detonated his vest killing more than thirty people that had been meeting in a cultural centre in solidarity with the Kurdish resistance in Kobane against ISIS across the border. 1 The youth association met to discuss how to help rebuild Kobane. 2

Mini pyre

A theatrical show of burning a heap of weapons in a semi-public setting was staged around a year ago on 11 July 2025. This piece of theatre, in retrospect, largely took place for the benefit of the doubt. In my opinion, it was little other than a political circus.

The weapons-burning was orchestrated in Jasana cave in the mountainous area of Sulaimaniya under the control of the PUK; the PKK and the KDP have historically had bad blood. The KDP has openly collaborated with Turkey for years: the party has enabled Turkish Intelligence agents (MIT) and the Turkish military to operate without restrictions against the PKK in the ‘yellow’ zone under the control of the corrupt Barzani leadership.

Despite several unilateral PKK ceasefires over the decades, the Turkish side has never demonstrated any change in its deeply racist attitudes, its militarist rhetoric or its actual militarisation of the Kurdish region within the modern-day borders of Turkey.

Millions of words have been spoken but there has never been any lasting or convincing response to Kurdish gestures.

If you consider at the ceremony of the weapons’ destruction it can be seen that there were no more than around 30 PKK militants taking part, and that a small pyre of arms was destroyed. It was symbolic.

Just days later a senior PKK cadre announced that no more such ceremonies would take place. The party has demanded legally binding guarantees from Erdogan along with the requisite changes to the constitution. They demand a special parliamentary commission to take over the next steps.

Media headlines asserting that the PKK was/is dissolving itself are still just that; nothing concrete has happened because the Turkish side has so far not met any of the opposition’s demands that might actually help to pave a path to equality.

Helin Ümit, a cadre within the PKK’s Central Committee structure, claimed the weak-sounding, “Peace and Democratic Society Group, “is preparing for democratic political participation”. The message had been delivered at the (symbolic) ceremony” she maintained.

Her terms of nomenclature arise from Ocalan’s embrace of Murray Bookchin’s philosophy dating from the 1980s 4 yet sounds more like the language of Orwell’s 1984.

The PKK’s collective amnesia

This is plain nonsense because the PKK has always operated a political platform and was not just defined by its armed wing. The armed wing had originally been called the Kurdistan Freedom Brigades (HRK), then in 1986, this mutated to the People’s Liberation Army of Kurdistan (ARGK) before its further mutation to the People’s Defense Forces (HPG).

The word ‘Kurdistan’ was dropped in 1999 after Öcalan’s capture on February 15, 1999. Regrettably, for the wider Kurdish community, the quest for Kurdish rights through the long and bloody decades of struggle that once stipulated an independent and then an autonomous Kurdistan has since become conflated with ‘freedom for Öcalan’.

Cadres like Helin Ümit (a nom de guerre – her surname means ‘hope’ in Turkish) appear to suffer from amnesia: they forget the PKK’s own history when trotting out the accepted currency of Bookchin-flavoured semantics: “At the beginning of the process, there were calls to grant Öcalan the right to hope for freedom, but so far, no change has been made in Öcalan’s situation,” she said. “For the process to be viable, it must be enshrined in law by the Turkish parliament to prevent it from being derailed by future political problems…” 6

But even back in 2023 – just three years ago – this same spokesperson had been speaking much more clearly, and “argued that what she called the genocidal war against the Kurdish people remains a defining factor in Turkey’s politics and economy. She said that a full understanding of Turkey’s political dynamics requires acknowledging the politics of İmralı and dismissing the notion of a detached democratic system as a misconception…”

Ümit was reported at that time to have adopted “a strong stance against the ruling AKP, condemning its almost 25 years in power. She accused the party of orchestrating, tolerating, collaborating with and accelerating criminal organisations.

Ümit argued that a conspiratorial bloc has been a feature of all Turkish governments since 1923, with the current coalition between the AKP and the far-right MHP representing the most sophisticated form. She held the government responsible for the formulation of the most conspiratorial and special war policies, which contributed to what she described as the darkest period of the country’s history.” 7

What has happened to Öcalan?

Many thousands of supporters quit the PKK after Öcalan’s capture in 1999, often in personal responses to his poor court performance and his claims that his mother was Turkish – along with utterances of guilt over Kurdish actions that he hoped would appease his captors. For example, he grovelled when he stressed the closeness of Turks and Kurds in history.

An author of a recent and highly-detailed book on the PKK, Aliza Marcus, had noted of Öcalan’s court performance: “I am sorry,” said Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, after a woman blamed him for the death of her soldier husband. “I understand your pain.” Kurds waited for him to continue, but he said nothing else.

Ocalan, who is responsible for leading the biggest Kurdish rebellion in Turkey’s history, did not bother to add that Kurdish families are also grieving. In fact, during the nine-day trial held in June on the island prison in the Sea of Marmara, he rarely mentioned what led Kurds to support the PKK. 8

Aliza Marcus’s new book, ‘Resilience and Revolution: The PKK and the Kurdish Fight in Turkey and Syria’ has just been published in an updated edition and offers a historic perspective devoid of amnesia. 9

In the two-plus decades since his capture and sentencing, Abdullah Öcalan has been successfully coerced by the Turkish government to hand them the PKK and Kurdish goals on a plate.

“More than any other actor, it is Abdullah Öcalan that has undone the PKK and with it the Kurdish cause the PKK claimed to represent” one angry Kurdish critic emphasised to me. “That the HDP and its ‘affiliates’ should follow such a path is even more pitiful. I cannot believe my own people can be so blind, so stupid.”

Öcalan’s recent video appearances bear no resemblance to his former character or public style to the extent that one might ask if he has been subjected to a lobotomy. He was held apart so long without visits by his lawyers or approved intermediaries that anything is possible. He has even been constrained to clip his moustache according to the Sunni-Islamist fashion showing the upper lip, unlike the bushy left-wing Kurdish moustache fashion of his heyday as a freer man in Damascus.

“Terror-Free Türkiye” propaganda does not equate to Kurdish rights

The Turkish AKP-MHP government has not made any constitutional changes and continues to use the language of ‘terrorism’ vowing to annihilate the PKK. Erdogan makes and breaks laws as it suits him. A major case in point was in turning his former ally, the late Islamist Fethullah Gulen and his movement into a ‘terrorist’ phenomenon.

The dissolution of the PKK has not happened just as when the group changed its name to KADEK for a short while. 11 This irritating word speak is much like the new variant of “The Peace and Democratic Society Group”. Advocating a ‘democratic solution at election time back in November 2002, almost twenty-four years ago, the PKK expended much rhetoric – but little changed.

Erdogan’s goal is PKK disarmament, in tandem with that of the YPG/SDF in Syria and the destruction of all PKK-linked/sympathetic affiliates. His overriding aim is to smother Kurdish political aspirations through depriving Kurds of their historic resort to ‘armed struggle’ despite the fact that the Iraqi Kurdish parties retain their respective peshmerga forces – and that these are now very well armed and highly trained by their Western backers.

Turkey is looking to crush Kurdish resistance in the name of ending ‘terrorism’ using slogans like ‘a terror free Turkey. That is not the same as peace or equality for Turkey’s long-suffering Kurds.

A draft law envisioned for ‘discussion’ this month is still being ‘discussed’. Any negotiations appear to be mainly ‘back channel’ with the pro-Öcalan HDP camp running the gauntlet as custom. 13The ‘KCK” is also referred to as part of the terrorist structure despite the KCK – Kurdistan Democratic Communities Union – being solely political14 – and to some extent a forerunner of the ‘Peace and Democratic Society Group.’

These name combinations have arisen throughout the struggle for legal representation through the parliamentary system – SDP, to HEP, ÖZEP, ÖZDEP, DEP, HADEP, DEHAP, DTH, DTP, BDP, HDP, DBP, and DEM – it doesn’t change. This movement reflects the same PKK-speak throughout its history.15

AKP officials claim any draft legislation can be expected to consist of 10 – 11 articles but would enter into force only after the government verifies that the PKK has laid down its arms. A title for it like “Law on the Dissolution, Disarmament, and Termination of the Legal Existence of the PKK-KCK Terrorist Organization,” is being bandied about according to the AKP.

AKP spokesperson, Ömer Çelik, claimed discussions had reached the stage of “evaluating a legal framework” but this would only take effect after the organization’s disarmament, thereby putting the cart before the horse. Çelik stated all of the PKK ‘extensions’ must also be dissolved.

The stumbling block is clearly that the PKK is expected to go the entire distance before any legal guarantees are even put into place by their long term foes.

The Kurdish quest for self-determination in Turkey is being conflated with ‘terrorism’ just as it has been by successive Turkish governments since the term ‘terrorism’ became fashionable. Kurdish parties that were once referred to as ‘brigands’ and ‘communists’ simply became ‘terrorists’.

Thus the slogan of a ‘terror-free Tükiye’ has nothing to do with peace or Bookchin’s utopian ‘democratic society’. Turkey’s society is a highly militarised society based on racist edicts enshrined in the Constitution.

The PKK for its part, dropped the word ‘Kurdistan’ once Öcalan wrecked his own vehicle of “independence for Kurdistan” and his followers sacrificed ever more to secure his freedom.

Scores of supporters worldwide had burned themselves to death for Öcalan even before he was first captured. Thousands fought or fell at the hands of the Turkish death squads and special forces. Female guerrillas were raped and their corpses mutilated by Turkish Special Forces, the army and gendarmes.

Today, torture is as prevalent in Turkey as ever and the entire Kurdish majority region is entirely militarised like one giant armed camp. There is no place in the Turkish constitution for ‘Kurds.’ This is highly unlikely to change while Erdogan remains alive and in power.

NATO’S weapons bounty

Meanwhile, NATO is about to give Turkey ‘tens of billions in defense deals’ – a sure sign of ‘peaceful’ future planning.

NATO Secretary-General, former Dutch premier, Mark Rutte 17 said the July 7 and 8 NATO summit in Turkey’s capital would focus on defense industry cooperation, weapons production and support for Ukraine: “We need to ensure that we are translating our economic might into military capabilities,” Rutte said at an Atlantic Council event in Washington…”18

Historically speaking, Turkey has turned NATO (and US) supplied weapons on its Kurdish minority breaking its end-use obligations but to little – if any – real censure. Human Rights Watch reported with concern in the mid-1990s. An extract from the November 1995 report, Weapons Transfers and Violations of the Laws of War in Turkey had stated:

“The United States government in particular has been deeply involved in arming Turkey and supporting its arms production capacities. Although several NATO governments have occasionally protested Turkish policies, most have continued to supply Turkey with arms.

This report documents the Turkish security forces’ violations of the laws of war and of human rights, and their reliance on U.S. and NATO-supplied weapons in doing so. Drawing on investigations of twenty-nine incidents that occurred between 1992 and 1995, the report links specific weapons systems to individual incidents of Turkish violations.

Supplemented by interviews with former Turkish soldiers, U.S. officials and defense experts, the report concludes that U.S. weapons, as well as those supplied by other NATO members, are regularly used by Turkey to commit severe human rights abuses and violations of the laws of war in the southeast.

The most egregious examples of Turkey’s reliance on U.S. weaponry in committing abuses are its use of U.S.-supplied fighter-bombers to attack civilian villages and its use of U.S.-supplied helicopters in support of a wide range of abusive practices, including the punitive destruction of villages, extrajudicial executions, torture, and indiscriminate fire…” 19

Time has not improved Turkey’s conduct. The UN’s OHCR has urged Turkey ‘not to turn back the clock on human rights’ and to end the criminalisation of human rights defenders and lawyers through the use of the rhetoric of ‘terrorism’ – just as with the so-called ‘peace process’:

“The misuse of anti-terrorism laws has been the subject of multiple letters from UN Special Procedures mandate holders to the Turkish Government in 2023 and 2020. The İHD has also been the subject of numerous communications to the Turkish authorities, most recently in 2022 and 2021. The most recent prosecution of its staff is linked to their work on prisoners’ rights, alleged torture cases and the promotion of a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue.” 20

But is anyone listening?

The post Debunked PKK Leader Ocalan Will Never Be Set Free appeared first on iKurd News.

Sheri Laizer | Exclusive to iKurd.net

Migrating to the Mesopotamian plains from northern Iraq and the Zagros mountains, the Sumerians brought written literature and music whose echoes resound anew…

“Enten is behind us, the winter darkness is no more.
Imhullu lies coiled in the mountain.
Who would disturb him?”
(Sumerian text)

Introduction

Wondering how Sumerian music sounds when I first heard Kurdish uzun hava (long air) music playing in the hills outside Jerusalem I got an exciting tingle along my spine. It was probably an old recording of Hasan Zirek that I heard. By 1985, I had begun working with Kurdish singers and musicians and presenting them at World Music festivals and writing the notes for recordings.

For three years before this discovery, I’d been researching Sumerian civilisation, based in the Valley of the Kings and later in the West Bank. The protracted Iran-Iraq war had made visas to Iraq very hard to get. Finally, in September 1989, the Iraqi Cultural Centre presented me with an invitation to travel to Iraq.

The ms. of my book, Ziggurats, was near completed and it was the key to the door. I was tactful not to mention living among the Kurds in Turkey between 1985-1988.

Years of reading Sumerian texts in translation and visiting the Mesopotamian sections of the British Museum took me inside Sumerian thought. Setting foot in Iraq did the rest. The passion burned bright.

The legacy of the great city of Ur dedicated to the moon deity, Nanna

The ruins of the Sumerian ziggurat of Ur were first re-appraised by King Nabonidus of Neo-Babylonian reign (556-539 BCE…), who began to restore Sippar, Ur and Babylon. Many inscriptions survive.

“This inscription emphasizes divine mandates for the restorations, references to earlier kings like Naram-Sin whose foundations were uncovered, and prayers for protection against threats from the Medes and Persians, reflecting Nabonidus’s efforts to legitimize his rule through religious renewal.[1] Similarly, a cylinder from Ur in the British Museum records the rebuilding of Sin‘s ziggurat there, invoking the moon-god’s favour for Nabonidus and his son Belshazzar, who acted as regent during the king’s prolonged absence.[2]”

The ziggurat at Ur was originally constructed in the reign of King Ur-Namma around 2112-2095 BCE.2

Nabonidus is known as the last king of Babylon, long after the Sumerian era.

No further significant restorations were initiated until the 1980s by President Saddam Hussein. The ziggurats were visible from miles around standing above the flat plains, situated close to the Euphrates (Firat) and Tigris (Dicle) rivers, lush with palm groves and reeds. Restoration has finally begun anew. 3

The ziggurat

In Sumerian, the pyramid structure was named an unir and ziggurratum (or ziggurartu) in Akkadian, meaning peak, pinnacle or high place. The top level offered a platform and temple where rituals would be performed for audiences far below.

Some rituals involved the high priestess of Inanna, the Sumerian forerunner of Venus, in initiation rites with the king of the city. Each city had its patron saint or deity.

The Sumerian people are currently thought to have originated from northern Iraq and the Zagros Mountain regions – long populated by the Kurds.

The Sumerians expressed emotions like nostalgia and remembrance for the mountains in poems, epics and hymns. They built ziggurat (stepped pyramids) as stairways to heaven where men could attain the realm of the deities.

The Sumerian archaeological period is known as the Uruk period dating to between 4000-3000 BC, taking its name from the city site of Uruk in southern Mesopotamia, today’s Iraq. It followed the period of the Ubaid culture spanning between 6000-4000 BC. The Early Dynastic period that succeeded Uruk then dates to 2900 – 2334 BCE.

Scientists most recently researching Mesopotamian DNA and that of the Levant consider there to have been mass migration from northern Iraq and the southern Zagros before 4000 BC with the movement of people down into the Mesopotamian plains all the way to the Persian Gulf after the Neolithic period.4

The south westerly migration is also traced to the Levant in Syria and Palestine with migration from northern Mesopotamia evident in the influential Neolithic cultures of Halaf (where the Khabur river meets the Euphrates in the north-east of Syria at Ras al-Ain/SE Turkey, the later Kurdish crossroads) and Hassuna (from c.7000 -5900 BCE). The site of Hassuna lies just 10 or kms south of the Abbasid stronghold of Samarra on the Tigris (Tell Hassuna/ Tell es-Sawwan).

Sumerian – A unique language (isolate)

Linguistic data about the relation of Hurrian and Sumerian further confirms the migration theory.5 Sumerian was a unique, isolate language. The Sumerians invented the cuneiform wedge-cut system of writing on clay tablets – the first known system.

They also invented the wheel and the sexagesimal numeral system with its base of 60, that passed down through the Babylonians to us. The sixty minute hour and the sixty second minute derive from this base. Their knowledge of mathematics and compiling lists extended to stock taking and economic record keeping on tablets. They maintained a list of kings from the earliest times.6

Irrigation, and the plough, are also a Sumerian legacy. The practised agriculture and farming keeping dairy herds, goats and sheep.

These passionate human beings made music, danced and sang, performed acrobats, and enjoyed drinking beer. Their pottery, sculpture and jewellery were all highly advanced and detailed. Artisans also undertook weaving.

Astronomy and astrology

The Sumerians identified and depicted the five visible major celestial bodies, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, along with the sun and the moon. They composed maps of the stars on tablets and formed a system of astrological lore.

Eleven planets with a twelfth further away can be seen on some of the clay tablets demonstrating their understanding of the solar system as well as the relative sizes of the different planets.

Sumerian musical instruments from the 3rd millennium BCE

The flute (Kurdish ney) and the double reed pipe – (Kurdish, duduk).

An academic research article, Extant silver pipes from Ur, 2450 BC explains: “Several Mesopotamian texts associate pipes (Sumerian gi-írra, gi-gíd, di-di [from gi=tube]8, with the shepherd-god Dumuzi who was the lover of the goddess Inanna9…The pipes fell silent when he descended to the underworld; when he returned the pipes were again played, and the living rejoiced (Dalley 1988, 160). Perhaps the destruction of the pipes in PG/333 was a reference to the silence of Dumuzi’s pipes in the underworld…”10

Dumuzi is the forerunner of the later Tammuz – a name still used as Temmuz, the month of July when everything perishes in the heat of summer in Mesopotamia.

The lyre

This was crafted in different sizes, the largest lyre is now thought to sound like a bass viol, the medium sized lyre like a cello, and small hand-held lyres. They range from three strings to as many as twelve strings.

The angular lyre

The Silver lyre found in the Royal Graves of Ur

The gold lyre with bull’s head, found in the Royal Graves of Ur

The boat-necked lyre, found in the Royal Graves of Ur

This harp or lyre (Queen Puabi’s harp) is thought to sound like a small guitar.

The long-necked lute (gish-gu-du)

This stringed instrument is akin to the Kurdish saz, tanbur or Anatolian baglama. The sound depends on the depth of the bowl.

It can have had eight or fewer strings. Canadian musician, Peter Pringle, performs a number of profoundly evocative renditions singing in Sumerian. Various compositions from the Epic of Gilgamesh etc. are played on a reconstructed instrument with just three strings. Pringle has recorded several other pieces of ancient music using reconstructed instruments and now dead languages.

Video: Peter Pringle accompanying Sumerian songs on the gish-gu-du

Drums

Drums included small kettledrums and frame drums whether made of coniferous wood (boxwood), or clay

The percussion instruments

The Sumerian musicians played rattles (sistrum) and used cymbals, and clappers

Trumpet and horns

The qarn, were made from animal horns, mainly from bulls and goats)

Key Discoveries at the Ur site

Eleven stringed instruments were recovered from the Royal Graves at Ur comprising two harps with decorative bulls’ heads and two wind instruments made of silver. (Other sites revealed some flutes or pipes made of bone).

Cuneiform tablets revealed the tuning as well as the playing of the instruments. Penn Museum writes:

We now know that by the Old Babylonian period in ancient Iraq (i.e., by at least ca. 1800 BC, or about 850 years after the period of the Royal Cemetery of Ur), there existed standardized tun­ing procedures that operated within a heptatonic, dia­tonic system consisting of seven different and interrelated scales…

The fact that these seven scales could be equat­ed with seven ancient Greek scales (dating some 1400 years later) quite startled the scholarly community; and the fact that one of the scales in common use was equiv­alent to our own modern major scale (do-re-mi) seemed difficult for many to believe (Fig. 6). But research on the part of several cuneiformists and musi­cologists working together has been strengthened over the years by the steady accumulation of cuneiform tablets that use the same standard corpus of Akkadian terms to designate the names of the musical strings; the names of the instruments and their parts; fingering tech­niques; the names of musical intervals (fifths, fourths, thirds, and sixths); and the names of the seven scales that derive their nomenclature from the particular interval of a fourth or a fifth on which the tuning procedure starts…

It is highly probable that the tuning systems evidenced in the Akkadian language in texts dating from the Old Babylonian to the Neo-Babylonian period (ca. 1800-500 BO had earlier Sumerian antecedents, because many of the technical terms in Akkadian have Sumerian equiva­lents.

Seven scales

The third from bottom scale is equivalent to do-re-mi.

Unlike most documented accounts of music history, the findings at the cemetery of Ur suggest that it was specifically female musicians who maintained and spread Sumerian oral musical tradition…13

Equality of the female with the male

The Abrahamic religions have undermined that natural, harmonious equality that exists between men and women, as was extolled in ancient Sumer – in daily life as in the realm of the natural forces and celestial deities.

Deity was not a man glaring down from the heavens upon homo sapiens, fingering a long beard, with a scroll, and dishing out punishments. This system was created through Judaism, diffuses through Christianity and subsequently Islam. The system remains divisive, and fear based.

The Sumerians were US not THEM. To return intuitively, consider their words and listen to how their music may have been performed with all its passion and emotion is, in my experience, akin to being (psychologically) freed of the accretions of imposed, patriarchal monotheism.

Sheri Laizer, a Middle East and North African expert specialist and well known commentator on the Kurdish issue. She is a senior contributing writer for iKurd.net. More about Sheri Laizer see below.

The post The Spirit of Ancient Sumer Revives appeared first on iKurd News.