Daesh's distinct threat to the Kurdistan Regional Government

Daeshs distinct threat to Kurdistan — Islamic State fighter. Photo: Ekurd/Medyan Dairieh/Zuma wire

Research compiled by Sheri Laizer | Exclusive to iKurd.net

Editor’s Note: Sheri Laizer, a Middle East specialist and well known commentator on the Kurdish issue.

Part I

The foe is inside Kurdistan, infiltrating Kurdish society and fighting on the frontline of the KRG, planning to swarm the region and encompass it within the ‘Islamic State’ if the US or Popular Mobilization Units retreat. The possibility of Daesh succeeding in their Kurdish goal is not far-fetched.

Iraqi Kurdistan, currently the Kurdistan Regional Government area has long played host to some Sunni extremist groups. From 1992 onwards, and throughout the Kurdish civil war (1994-1998), the Islamic Movement in Kurdistan established in 1987 (IMK) (renamed the Islamic Unity Movement in the year 2000); Al Tawhid (Islamic Unification Movement; the Soran Forces that included non Iraqi Arab fighters, veterans of the war in Afghanistan; Islamic Unity Front (IUM) – a union between the former and Hamas; the Second Soran Unit that went on to merge with the Islamic Front to form Jund al-Islam in 2001. Ansar al-Islam that succeeded Jund al-Islam and scored serious successes against Kurdish forces and Kurdish targets.

Recall the 1993 clashes between the PUK and IMK in both Sulaimaniyah and Kirkuk provinces and the subsequent IMK take-over of Halabja, using the town as its base after the civil war kicked off between the KDP and PUK on 1 May 1994.

In May 2001, IMK commander, Ali Bapir, announced the formation of the Islamic Group in Iraqi Kurdistan. On 8 September 2001 the creation of Jund al-Islam was announced. It renamed itself Ansar al-Islam “espousing an ultra-orthodox Islamic ideology reminiscent of Wahhabism, the group’s leaders issued decrees imposing their strict interpretation of Islam on the local inhabitants and introducing harsh punishments…” Recall also renewed operations in 2001 in Biyara and Tawela, northeast of Halabja in Sulaymaniyah governorate by Ansar al-Islam over a significant period.

Al Zarqawi is said to have operated from a safe house in Iraqi Kurdistan after leaving Afghanistan. With the co-operation of long-term IMK leader, Najmuddin Faraj Ahmad, known as Mala Fateh Kreka or Mullah Krekar, who became the Emir of Ansar al-Islam, they reportedly unified the various Islamist groups such that Al Qaeda ‘facilitated the formation of Jund al-Sham’ using Kurdistan as a ‘rear base’ of operations alongside US moves to topple Saddam Hussein. After the 2003 precision bombings, the PUK’s attack on Ansar al-Islam militants and capture of prisoners, al Zarqawi relocated to Anbar province.

Islamist groups have continued to carry out sporadic but successful bombing attacks in the Kurdistan region despite the vigilance of Kurdish intelligence forces in the KDP’s Parastin and PUK’s Dazgary Zanyari and the Asayish formed by each party. The main targets of arrest have been Islamic militants, critics of the government and journalists.

Iraqi Kurds, disillusioned with the dominion of the two main parties that has led to such significant socio-economic and political inequalities, are among the key recruits to IS. The organisation accordingly benefits from Kurdish insider knowledge, not only of the mountainous terrain of Kurdistan but also the whereabouts of key opposition targets. Mosques, radio and television stations and even Islamist elements in Kurdistan’s universities promote Jihadist ideology.

Denise Natali writing for al-Monitor observed: “According to the KRG Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs, at least 500 Iraqi Kurdish youths have thus far joined IS to fight on the battleground in Mosul and Syria…Two of the most influential … cleric-recruiters are Imam Gailani from Sulaimaniyah and Mullah Shwan, a well-known mullah linked to a mosque in Erbil under the auspices of the KRG’s Ministry of Religious Endowments. Mullah Shwan’s defection to IS was particularly shocking because he was considered a moderate religious leader and friend to the KRG Ministry of Religious Endowments. On 17 April 2015, a bombing attack was staged in the Kurdish capital, Erbil.

This religious presence on the ground lends itself to radicalisation, particularly of Kurdish youth – as with youth elsewhere – lured by the power and self-proclaimed ‘prestige’ of IS in the service of Allah. Some would-be recruits are radicalised in the universities as well as by radio and television stations that broadcast the messages of Salafist leaders.

Denise Natali astutely observed, ”In a region where political grievances, corruption, economic disfranchisement, financial instability and poor education is rampant, Kurdish youth are particularly vulnerable to being brainwashed or enticed by IS and other radical groups. Kurdish and other officials seeking to counter IS should attempt to understand and alleviate the sources of deep and growing opposition to the KRG through effective political and economic solutions: job creation, merit-based education, opportunities for youth and tackling corruption. Without such measures and attention to vulnerable groups, pockets of extremism and IS opportunism will remain a significant threat to the region’s internal stability.”

The foe is inside Kurdistan, infiltrating Kurdish society and lurking on the frontline of the KRG, planning to swarm the region and encompass it within the ‘Islamic State.’ The possibility of Daesh succeeding is not far-fetched.

Risks in Dohuk Governorate

Kurds recall how easily their region area fell to the Iraqi Army after the failed uprising of March-April 1991. They are also aware of the participation of former Ba’athist military and intelligence operatives with ISIS, whose knowledge has since served IS in its recent military offensives and fundamental administrative functions, even if renamed.

The former ceasefire line between the Kurdish forces and Iraqi Army remained permeable. The actual ‘border’ fluctuated on the basis of offensives by the Iraqi Army and counter offensives by the peshmerga.

Although the ceasefire zone put in effect since 1991 provided a measure of protection to the former KAA/KAZ and post-Saddam, KRG territory, this never implied that full security was ensured on the ground in practice.

The KRG/Iraqi Kurdistan, Iraq and Syria, witness IS forces operating extremely close to Kurdish lines and in many borderline areas place the Kurdish population in a highly vulnerable position.

Risks in Dohuk

Although the Kurdish sector of the army works alongside coalition forces and provides intelligence to the command centre for operations based in the Kurdish capital of Erbil, IS remains a significant threat to the Kurdistan region as elsewhere in Iraq, Syria (any beyond).

The Yezidi enclave of Sinjar was easily overwhelmed in 2014 by IS fighters that unleashed extreme violence on the civilian population, murdering men and boys and seizing females as ‘sex slaves’, repeatedly raping them. Thousands of Yezidis fled from their traditional home. The Kurdish forces did not and probably could not save them. Many survivors of IS’s barbaric onslaught eke out a miserable existence in Kurdistan as refugees/ IDPs – a large proportion in the city of Dohuk and its outskirts.

Dohuk had fallen swiftly to the Iraqi Army in April 1991. The city and wider governorate adjoins large areas of Sunni Arab majority, some of who oppose Kurdish autonomy and certainly ambitions for independence from Iraq along with the support shown for Iran by the two main parties, the KDP and PUK.

Dohukis, and the internally displaced Iraqi Kurds and Arabs, in and around Dohuk, sense that the region remains vulnerable to attack by IS forces from several historically strategic points: the Tigris river border with Syria, west of Ibrahim Khalil and Zakho, west near the former Iraqi Army base housing at Domiz as well as near Ain Sifni and Faida, as well as from the south towards Mosul and east around Kirkuk.

The Peshkhabour pontoon bridge north of Sahela, south of Peshkabour was opened by the KRG authorities to let thousands of Syrian Kurdish refugees fleeing ISIL enter the Kurdistan region in August 2013.

Dohuk remains overcrowded with refugees and displaced Iraqis. The Dohuk Governorate already accommodated 200,000 Syrian refugees assisted by UNHCR “mainly in camps and settlements but by mid 2014 the Governor of Dohuk would also need to find space for 500,000 internally displaced Iraqis from Mosul and Sinjar driven out by IS forces.

Australian lawyer, Paul White, working for the UN in Baghdad before being reassigned to Dohuk, observed “The schools were the first to fill up with displaced people; then unfinished buildings and roadside camps developed including some under bridges and overpasses. All dwellings were very basic but with 200,000 refugees already in Dohuk there were few options available…”

“Occasionally they would bring young girls sometimes as young as 13 who needed assistance after they had escaped from Da’ish or had been bought back by their family. I learned from their first-hand reports that the modus operandi of Da’ish in Sinjar was to kill the men and boys. The women and girls were separated and some sent to Syria or to parts of Iraq controlled by Da’ish. Many were forced to work as sex slaves for Da’ish. If media reports are correct, Australians who join Da’ish are also perpetrators of this brutality.”

IS forces remain active on all fronts throughout Iraq. The proximity of Dohuk to its forces in both Iraq and Syria remains problematic.

According to one research specialist in a paper headed ‘The Islamic State’s Strategy: Lasting and Expanding’ “…despite the challenges facing it, the Islamic State has been resilient and adaptable. Even though it lost a quarter of its territories in Iraq after the first six months of international coalition air strikes, it still managed to advance into the city of Ramadi in May 2015. “

In the three to four month interval since that date, IS has held onto a third of Iraq and made further gains in Syria. Al-Baghdadi has put out the call for further recruits on an international basis.

Risks in Erbil Governorate

Erbil has been the target of a number of extremely serious Islamist terrorist attacks since regime change. It remains porous despite the high security presence and bomb blast barricades around key installations and hotels.

The February 2004 twin bombing attack killed several senior KDP and PUK officials and numerous party members and visitors to the Eid celebrations respectively.

Lesser bombing attacks have occurred intermittently to the present including a bomb attack detonated in Erbil’s city centre earlier this year.

Risks in Sulaimaniyah Governorate

Islamic extremist groups have operated effectively in Sulaimaniyah governorate since the failed Kurdish uprising of 1991.

In 2002, Human Rights Watch undertook a mission in Iraqi Kurdistan and reported that “PUK officials have repeatedly accused Ansar al-Islam of having links with Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network, and that its members included Arabs of various nationalities who had received military training in Afghanistan. The PUK also said some fifty-seven “Arab Afghan” fighters had entered Iraqi Kurdistan via Iran in mid-September 2001…villagers who had fled Biyara and Tawela and were interviewed in September 2002 appeared to support this contention. A number of them, including former detainees, said that there were foreigners among Ansar al-Islam forces, that on occasion they were interrogated by non-Iraqis speaking various Arabic dialects, and that they had heard other languages spoken that they did not recognize.

Scores of Iraqi Kurds affiliated to Ansar al-Islam, including key leaders, consider themselves veterans of the Afghan war…initially fighting against Soviet forces during the 1980s.

Representatives of other Iraqi Kurdish Islamist groups who maintain links with Ansar al-Islam told Human Rights Watch that a small number of Iraqi Kurds affiliated to the group had also fought alongside the Taliban, and that they then returned to Iraqi Kurdistan following the latter’s defeat…

Documents discovered in an al-Qaeda guest house in Afghanistan by the New York Times discuss the creation of an “Iraqi Kurdistan Islamic Brigade” just weeks prior to the formation of Ansar al-Islam… Ansar al-Islam members in PUK custody have described …training in al-Qa’ida camps in Afghanistan.

That same year, Ansar al-Islam attempted to bomb a cultural centre in Sulaimaniyah , attempted suicide bombings as well as attacking PUK posts outside Halabja, executing half of the 50 PUK peshmerga they had captured or that had surrendered, contrary to the rules of war.

Sulaymaniyah Governorate borders Iran from where various political entities enter Iraqi Kurdistan ranging from the Iranian Security Services and opposition groups, the PKK combating Turkey and IS, through to both Iranian Shi’a and international Sunni Islamic militants.

Risks in Nineveh Governorate

Kirkuk and nearby Tuz Khurmatu, a mixed Turkman, Kurdish, and Arab area, possess a significant IS footprint. Two Turkmen from Nineveh Governorate occupy leadership roles in IS. With the local intelligence they contribute to the group, much of Nineveh has already fallen to Daesh. Reported to compose 95% of Iraq’s Christian population, some 200,000 Assyrians have fled into Kurdistan.

Much of Nineveh and northern Salahuddin province are still held by Daesh, including the cities of Mosul in Nineveh and Ramadi in al-Anbar province. Jalawla, a predominantly Kurdish popular town that was overrun by Daesh in 2014 thereafter became a ghost town, one sector patrolled by the peshmerga and another by the Iraq-government linked Popular Mobilisation Units that reportedly show no sign of leaving.

In March, KDP leader, Nachirvan Barzani gave an interview to Amberin Zaman published on Al-Monitor’s website that include his comment on the war against Daesh:

“It was a big shock in the beginning. But since then it seems we have been able to push them back from the Kurdistan territories, from the areas surrounding Kirkuk, Zumar, Rabia, Mosul Dam, Makhmour and Gwer. These regions have been liberated…In general the situation is much better. But the danger has obviously not subsided altogether and so long as Mosul remains in the hands of ISIL the threat will remain.

Shi’a Popular Mobilization Units

The Iraq government linked Shi’a Popular Mobilization Units were activated to combat Daesh along the border areas with the KRG, including at Saadiyah, Jawlawla and Amerli, according to Nachirvan Barzani who stated in interview, “When some top [Iranian] officials say, “If it were not for us, Erbil would have fallen,” that is clearly unhelpful. It is not true. Or when they say that “Baghdad is the capital of Iran.” The plain truth is that the most decisive role in pushing back ISIL was played by the United States. Without the Americans it would have been impossible for us to succeed…When ISIL came to Mosul, the whole equation changed. We view Iraq as pre-Mosul and post-Mosul. Without American help we would have been unable to halt the advance of this group. Because Daesh was far better equipped than us.”

Turkey’s Variable Role

The role of Turkey in the regional conflict with Daesh is also pivotal. Not until 29 August 2015 was there a significant shift from ‘laisser faire’ to active military participation in coalition attacks against Daesh. Turkish warplanes joined strikes carried out by the US-led coalition. The Telegraph reported that “the Turkish move came after 33 people were killed in an attack on July 20 in its southeast blamed on IS.”

However, as noted a day later by Patrick Cockburn in the Independent, Turkey mainly aimed its strikes against the PKK rather than IS. “According to an investigation by Mitchell Prothero of the McClatchy news organisation, citing many Syrian sources in Turkey, the Turkish motive was to destroy the US-run movement, which was intended to number 15,000 fighters targeting Isis. Its disintegration would leave the US with no alternative but to train Turkish-sponsored rebel groups whose primary aim is to topple Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad. The article quotes a Syrian rebel commander in the Turkish city of Sanliurfa, 30 miles north of the Syrian border, as saying that the Turks “don’t want anything bad to happen to their allies – Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham – along the border, and they know that both the Americans and the Syrian people will eventually recognise that there’s no difference between groups such as Nusra, Ahrar and Daesh.” How does Isis itself assess the new US-Turkish accord? Its fighters may find it more difficult to cross the Syrian-Turkish border, though even this is uncertain. “

As KDP functionary, Prime Minister, Nechirvan Barzani, had earlier emphasised, “Turkey needs to do more to prevent the flow of foreign fighters through its borders. Foreign fighters continue to enter Iraqi Kurdistan and most are coming from Syria via Turkey. In terms of what Turkey is doing here on the ground, Turkish officers are … training peshmerga in the Soran area in Diyanah and at another camp in Kalacholan near Sulaimaniyah. If we ask for more training they will give it to us…”

Saddam Hussein’s ‘Faith Campaign’ – a serious miscalculation

This organisational structure of IS was effectively adopted from the Ba’ath Party and came into being with the assistance of several former leading Ba’athists. IS would, however, turn on its Ba’athist allies in a manner miscalculated by remnants of the former regime that had first exploited the religious card during the Iran-Iraq war and intensified the process at the time of the invasion of Kuwait.

Between 1993-1994, Saddam Hussein formally inaugurated the ‘Islamic Faith Campaign’ seeking to protect his regime against Iranian fundamentalism by welding Ba’athist ideology to Islam.

The campaign was overseen by Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, Saddam’s right hand man and deputy. The handwritten takbir “Allahu Akbar” was added to the Iraqi flag. (The post Saddam regime changed the flag several times and eventually removed the three stars with the symbolic links to Ba’athism in 2008)

In a well-researched paper, Saddam and the Islamists (Part 2) Middle East analyst, Kyle W. Orton cites Amatzia Baram’s “evidence from Iraqi internal documents and tapes of Cabinet meetings captured after the fall of Baghdad to show that Saddam’s regime had formed an alliance with Islamists in the mid-1980s for use in its foreign policy… later in the 1980s had begun steps toward Islamizing Iraq internally.”

The process intensified during the occupation of Kuwait from August 1990 to February 1991, and accelerated after his defeat with the imposition of international sanctions on Iraq.

“While the Ba’ath regime’s initial resort to Islamism was likely cynical, by the end Saddam seems to have been a believer, and in any case the Faith Campaign took on a life of its own—one that is still very much with us.”

The plans for the state consisted of “handwritten organizational charts, lists and schedules, set out in practical organisational terms how a country may systematically be brought under control. Said to be a ‘multi-layered composition with directives for action, some already tested and others newly devised’ for Syria’s rebel-held territories the plan was accurately implemented.

Der Spiegel observed how, firstly, the organisation amassed recruits under the pretext of opening local bureaus in the name of Dawa. One or two star players would then be selected from those attending lectures and courses on Islam. The chosen recruits were thereafter inducted to spy on their own villages and on those towns that were targeted to obtain intelligence as to “who lived there, who was in charge, which families were religious, which Islamic school of religious jurisprudence they belonged to, how many mosques there were, who the Imam was, how many wives and children he had and how old they were” as well as “what the Imam’s sermons focused on, whether he was more open to the Sufi, or mystical variant of Islam, whether he sided with the opposition or the regime, and what his position was on jihad. Did the Imam earn a salary? If so, who paid it? Who appointed him? And finally: How many people in the village supported the ideal of democracy?”

Lists of the main/powerful families.
Names of the key individuals in these families.
Their sources of income.
Name/s and size/s of brigades in the village.
Names of the brigade leaders and their political orientation.
Ascertain any illegal activities (as according to Shari’a law), which could be used to blackmail them and induce their cooperation.

The agents were instructed, “to note such details as whether someone was a criminal or a homosexual, or was involved in a secret affair, so as to have ammunition for blackmailing later.”

“Although the plans included sectors like finance, schools, day care, the media and transportation, the core theme – meticulously addressed in organizational charts and lists of responsibilities and reporting requirements – was for surveillance, kidnapping and murder” just as in the Ba’ath Party.

“For each provincial council, an Emir, or commander, was put in charge of abductions, hits, snipers, communication and encryption.

“The plan was for the intelligence services to operate in parallel at the provincial level. A general intelligence department reported to the “security emir” for each region, who was in charge of deputy-emirs for individual districts. A head of secret spy cells and an “intelligence service and information manager” for the district reported to each of these deputy-emirs. The spy cells at the local level reported to the district emir’s deputy. The goal was to have everyone keeping an eye on everyone else.”

And so it continues. In Iraq every person must keep watch on his neighbours as well as the horizon where the black flags flutter in tangible menace.

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.