Iraq

Anti-ISIS passport ban won't work

Around Kobane, the Kurdish-majority Syrian city near the Turkish border besieged by ISIS ("Islamic State", Daesh), US airstrikes have significantly increased. Kurdish forces (Iraqi-Kurdish peshmerga, and the Syrian-Kurdish YPG, linked to the Turkish-Kurdish PKK) have now begun to retake territory. 1,200 people have now been killed in the siege. Fuad Hussein, chief of staff to the KRG (Iraq-Kurdish) president Massoud Barzani, says that the CIA’s figuree of 31,000 ISIS fighters is a big underestimate, and the Iraqi government National Security Adviser concurs. ISIS continues to recruit...

ISIS threat is still strong

ISIS (Daesh, the “Islamic State” movement) now governs over six million people across Iraq and Syria and despite an apparent slowing of new foreign fighters coming to join them they have maintained a large group of fighters and a formidable military capability. The Albu Nimr tribe, a Sunni group in Western Iraq, had continued to fight ISIS in Anbar province despite Abadi's Baghdad government failing to provide arms. ISIS has now executed almost 400 members of the tribe as a punishment for its resistance. ISIS is now closer to the Haditha Dam and the largest airbase in Anbar. The Iraqi army and...

Should the left say: "Let the Kurds die!"?

Over a thousand Kurdish people gathered in Trafalgar Square, London, on Saturday 1 November, taking part in a day of international solidarity for the Kurds fighting ISIS (Daesh, "Islamic State") in Kobane. Among the small number of people at the protest who were not Kurdish were a handful of representatives of the Socialist Party and SWP. Both these groups have a problem. Both campaign to stop the US bombing which is currently helping the Kurds resist IS. They do not just do as Solidarity does - express no confidence in the US, refuse to endorse its campaign. They specifically campaign to stop...

Should the left say: "Let the Kurds die!"?

Over a thousand Kurdish people gathered in Trafalgar Square, London, on Saturday 1 November, taking part in a day of international solidarity for the Kurds fighting ISIS (Daesh, "Islamic State") in Kobane. Among the small number of people at the protest who were not Kurdish were a handful of representatives of the Socialist Party and SWP. Both these groups have a problem. Both campaign to stop the US bombing which is currently helping the Kurds resist IS. They do not just do as Solidarity and Workers' Liberty do - express no confidence in the US, refuse to endorse its campaign. They...

Over a thousand rally to support the Kurdish struggle, but British left largely absent

1,500 people protested in Trafalgar Square on 1 November as part of the International Day of Action in support of Kobane, the Syrian Kurdish town being besieged by ISIS. A big majority of those taking part were Kurdish, an even mix of age and women, all ages, and from a wide variety of organisations. Unfortunately non-Kurdish left, labour movement and student activists were present only in small numbers – probably because the conflict in Kurdistan does not fit the “Western powers vs anti-imperialists” template that much of the British left is used to operating with. I only saw one trade union...

Solidarity with democratic, workers' and socialist forces in the Middle East resisting ISIS! Mobilise for 1 November!

(Muayad Ahmed, secretary of the Worker-communist Party of Iraq, addresses the conference.) Click here for index page for documents from AWL conference 2014 The Alliance for Workers' Liberty conference (London, 25-6 October) sends solidarity to democratic, working-class and socialist organisations resisting ISIS and other oppressive forces in Kurdistan, Syria and Iraq, including our comrades in the Worker-communist Parties of Kurdistan and Iraq . We support the people of Kurdistan in their fight for self-determination and self-rule. More broadly, people in Kobane and elsewhere are fighting a...

Fact and fiction about the Kurdistan row in NUS

I have read on social media various criticisms of my report of the September NUS National Executive Council meeting . Here are some thoughts in response. Didn't you go to the press about the NUS Black Students' Officer, the row about Kurdistan and ISIS? No. I have had a number of requests from newspapers to comment and I have turned them all down, the ones from the Sun and Daily Mail very rudely. This is because I am a socialist, anti-racist and feminist and have no intention of helping any right-wing campaign. I also have my own experience of being witch-hunted by the political right and the...

Arm the people to defeat Daesh!

Muayad Ahmed is the secretary of the central committee of the Worker-communist Party of Iraq. He is currently in Britain after spending time recently in Sulaimaniya (in Iraqi Kurdistan) and in Baghdad. He spoke to Martin Thomas about conditions in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan. MA: People’s daily life has changed dramatically. People are worried, always expecting the worst — carnage, slaughter by Daesh [the “Islamic State” movement or ISIS], and so on. A very bad atmosphere exists in Kurdistan. And every day in Baghdad, people see the effects of Daesh, their killings, car bombs and so on. When...

Help the Kurds defeat ISIS

Fighting has continued across Syria and Iraq between ISIS (“Islamic State”) forces and Kurdish militia and Iraqi military. Airstrikes around the town Kobane (in Syria near the Turkish border) of by the US-led military coalition have intensified, and the march of ISIS has been slowed. However the airstrikes have not forced back ISIS in either Iraq or Syria. The prospect of a drawn-out conflict remains. Four hundred ISIS fighters are reported to have entered the Iraqi towns of Fallujah and nearby Karma. The town of Hit, 80 miles from Baghdad, has also been claimed by ISIS. While ISIS has been...

Students and solidarity with the Kurds!

The National Union of Students, compared to recent years, has a stronger base of “left-wing” activists and full time officers on its National Executive Committee. This makes it hard to see why they recently voted down a motion to make solidarity with the Kurdish people. That motion was written by activists in the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty (including NEC member Daniel Cooper) and by Roza Salih, a member of the Scottish executive committee of NUS. A similar motion had been passed by NUS Scotland before the NEC meeting. Roza is a left-wing Iraqi-Kurdish woman, who has been campaigning to make...

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