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Iraqi forces 'launch major Kirkuk operation'

Do you not believe that Hashd is a part of IRGC Quds force?

Whilst the PMU (Hashd) has many groups, for this sake we can divide the PMU in 2 parts. One part (the largest) loyal to Baghdad and operating under the Baghdad chain of command, the other part operating under IRGC command. Saraya Al-Khorasani operates under the IRGC, whilst many other groups like Kataib Hezbollah, Asaib ahl al haq (especially since 2015) and Badr brigades operate under Baghdad.

Trying to call the Hashd an Iranian group is a mostly Kurdish attempt with the sole purpose of having the US view them as enemies. If you read Kurdish news sources you will notice that they try to ignore Iraqi military involvement and the fact that they are leading these operations, they prefer to enlarge the role of the PMU and call it Iranian-led.

Who met with PUK leaders at the last moment to convince them to give up Kirkuk and other disputed areas? Abadi didn't even initially strongly oppose Barzani's independence push, and only started to move against it when Iran and Turkey made clear that a independent Kurdistan is a red line to them.

I don't really care who is behind this whole operation. In fact, everything we have seen thus far makes clear that is a joint Iraqi-Iranian-Turkish move. We should all be glad that a foreign orchestrated project has been foiled.

Iran has influence on the PUK, that is correct. Militarily however there's no foreign involvement, not on any level as far as anyone knows. All sources saying otherwise are doing so for propaganda purposes. Besides, there was no unified agreement on pulling out of Kirkuk from the Peshmerga side (either PUK or KDP), they are all very divided and this inner division aided the ISF in Kirkuk's takeover. If there were agreements to pull out there would've been no clashes, in reality there are dozens of deaths in Kirkuk as video's show, same story in Nineveh. The ISF overwhelmed them, I proposed this for the past months calling it overrunning trenches, glad it worked.

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Some more victories

 
I want to see these areas under Iraqi Army and Federal Police control, Sulemani, Soran, Darbandikhan, Erbil are enough for KRG territory.

z20qkJC.png


Then annex Peshmerga forces in your own Army ranks. Train peshmerga yourself, equipt them yourself, put them under your own commanders, give their salaries yourself. With this way, they will not be Barzani's personal toy.
 
I want to see these areas under Iraqi Army and Federal Police control, Sulemani, Soran, Darbandikhan, Erbil are enough for KRG territory.

z20qkJC.png


Then annex Peshmerga forces in your own Army ranks. Train peshmerga yourself, equipt them yourself, put them under your own commanders, give their salaries yourself. With this way, they will not be Barzani's personal toy.
Id want the autonomy of KRG to be outright revoked.
 
As Turks and as people who are loyal to their state we are happy Iraq has kicked these traitors arse, however don't be mistaken the biggest losers in this are the KRG and somewhat Turkey, the biggest winners are Iran and Iraq. If these countries (Syria, Iran, Turkey, Iraq) can stop supporting each other's terrorists and come together as civilised nations then we would not have pawns like the Kurds and radical Salafi and Shia elements in the Middle East.
 
Id want the autonomy of KRG to be outright revoked.

Iraq needs one huuuge mistake to be made by KRG, in order to justify revoking autonomy since autonomy internationally guaranteed by big powers. Hopefully Barzani will give Casus Belli to Ibadi soon, since Barzani is an idiot.

Referendum was enough justification to interfere Kirkuk and other disputed areas, but taking over KRG all together requires bigger justification.
 
Iraq needs one huuuge mistake to be made by KRG, in order to justify revoking autonomy since autonomy internationally guaranteed by big powers. Hopefully Barzani will give Casus Belli to Ibadi soon, since Barzani is an idiot.

Referendum was enough justification to interfere Kirkuk and other disputed areas, but taking over KRG all together requires bigger justification.

Requires PKK to take over KRG
 
Requires PKK to take over KRG
He said, "Iraq needs one huuuge mistake to be made by KRG"

Not, "Turkey needs one huuuge mistake to be made by KRG".....if PKK takes over KRG....we would come guns blazing, there is no question.
 
Requires PKK to take over KRG

Or Barzani to attack officials with his militia.

If i remember correct, Iraqi parliament demanded to arrest those who were responsible with illegal referendum. The responsible guy is, Barzani.

If officials moves to Erbil to arrest him in the name of Law, and if Barzani orders his peshmerga to open fire at officials, it will be declaration of war to Bagdat.

You may not completely disband KRG as a whole but you can clearly justify to take Erbil, and there will only Suleimani left. I am completely sure that Barzani will resist and not just get arrested.
 
He said, "Iraq needs one huuuge mistake to be made by KRG"

Not, "Turkey needs one huuuge mistake to be made by KRG".....if PKK takes over KRG....we would come guns blazing, there is no question.

The US is the primary player in this case for a good reason, they have bases in Iraq and they effectively enforce airspace control in the country, not Russia. Therefor to undo the autonomy we have to invalidate the KRG government in the eyes of the US, PKK taking over is one possible method (but knowing them they'll form a new name to bypass the terror list), but that's a costly method which involves bloodshed, surely there are better ways.
 
Abadi has decided to pay all northern Iraq's employees directly and not through the KRG.

Many Kurdish politicians are switching sides to be on the winning side.

Meanwhile barzanis lot is nowhere to be seen except on Facebook and Twitter.
 
Iranian General Helped Iraqis Seize Kirkuk From U.S. Allies
by Ken Dilanian, Carol E. Lee and Vivian Salama



A few days after the Trump administration announced a new, get-tough approach to Iran, one of that country's top military commanders and the armed Shiite militias he supports played a key role in the seizure of an important Iraqi city from the U.S.-backed Kurds, according to Iraqi, Kurdish and American officials.

Former U.S. national security officials told NBC News the Iranian-brokered seizure of oil-rich Kirkuk by the Iraqi government and its militia partners, which heightens the risk of civil war, amounts to an embarrassing strategic blow to the U.S. at the hands of Iran.

"It is a catastrophic defeat for the United States and a fantastic victory for Iran's Revolutionary Guard, proving that Qassem Soleimani gets his way once again," said Ali Khedery, a former senior adviser on Iraq policy in the Bush and Obama administrations.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/mideast/iranian-general-helped-iraqis-seize-kirkuk-u-s-allies-n811026
Soleimani is head of the Iranian military's special forces and extraterritorial operations. The major general commands an elite unit known as the Quds Force and has been dubbed the most powerful intelligence operative in the Middle East. According to Kurdish and Iraqi officials, he traveled to Kirkuk last week to weigh in on the dispute between Baghdad and the Kurds over the strategically important city of Kirkuk.


Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani (C) attends Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's (not seen) meeting with the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) on September 18, 2016 in Tehran, Iran. Anadolu Agency / Getty Images file
Kurdish officials and former U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News Soleimani helped negotiate a deal under which one Kurdish faction would abandon its checkpoints and allow Iraqi government forces, backed by Iranian-supported Shiite militias, to take the city uncontested. That explains, they say, why there was so little fighting as Iraqi forces, armed with heavy weapons provided by the U.S., seized Kirkuk from the Kurds, who also carry American weapons and have been the most stalwart U.S. ally in the fight against ISIS.

“It is a catastrophic defeat for the United States.”
"We're confident that Qassem Soleimani engineered, guided, directed, manipulated this deal," Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, the Kurdish representative in Washington, told NBC News.

She said Soleimani used a carrot-and-stick approach, threatening force and offering financial inducements to certain elements of a Kurdish faction whose soldiers abandoned their positions.

A spokesman for Iraq's Shiite-dominated paramilitary forces, Mouin al-Khadhimy, acknowledged to NBC News that Soleimani was in Iraq in recent days — to ease tensions between Iraqi and Kurdish forces, al Khadhimy said.

Ali Akbar Velayati, a foreign policy adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in an Oct. 17 statment reported by Al-Monitor that "Iran plays no role in the Kirkuk operation."

President Donald Trump said the U.S. wasn't taking sides, and his government neither condemned the move by Baghdad nor mentioned the Iranian component.

"We remain very concerned about the situation in northern Iraq," said Michael Anton, spokesman for the National Security Council. "We urge both parties to stand down and resolve any dispute peacefully and politically, remain united in the fight against ISIS and remain united against a common threat in Iran."


Kurdish gunmen take up position on a street in central Kirkuk city, northern Iraq, on Oct. 16, 2017. Afan Abdulkhaleq / EPA
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) warned Monday there would be "severe consequences" if Baghdad used U.S. arms against the Kurds.

"The United States provided equipment and training to the government of Iraq to fight [the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS)] and secure itself from external threats — not to attack elements of one of its own regional governments, which is a longstanding and valuable partner of the United States," McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement.

Critics accused Trump of wilting in the face of Iran's tough tactics.

"This is the first real tangible challenge to the Trump Iran doctrine, and we have our answer: it seems like there is nothing behind it," Michael Barbero, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general who served in Iraq and has close ties to the Kurds, told NBC News.

By allowing Iran to facilitate an Iraqi takeover of Kirkuk, Khedery added, "We have undermined our secular moderate, Western-leaning Kurdish allies in the Middle East. Our foes will be emboldened, our allies shaken."

This is the first real tangible challenge to the Trump Iran doctrine.”
U.S. officials, not authorized to be named speaking publicly, disputed the idea that Iran got the better of the Trump administration. They argue that Kirkuk was always going to be a flashpoint between Baghdad and the Kurds, whether or not Iran was involved. Iran's heavy involvement in Iraq has long been a fact of life, they say — something the U.S. has no choice but to live with.

U.S. officials have long sought to convince the Kurds to postpone a referendum declaring independence from Iraq. After U.S. forces left Iraq in 2011, Vice President Joseph Biden and other American officials conducted hours of diplomacy in an effort to mediate the situation.


Iraqi police monitor as people gather in the street in the city of Kirkuk to celebrate on Oct. 18, 2017, after Iraqi government forces retook almost all the territory disputed between Baghdad and the autonomous Kurdish region, crippling its hopes of independence after a controversial referendum. Ahmad Al-Rubaye / AFP - Getty Images
Brett McGurk, the U.S. diplomat most closely focused on Iraq and ISIS policy, was unable to convince the Kurds to continue postponing the vote, which finally occurred in September. Once the Kurds voted overwhelmingly in favor of separating, American officials declared the referendum illegitimate, in keeping with their policy of trying to maintain Iraq as a single country.

"We were never going to support the Kurds in a fight with the Iraqi government," one U.S. intelligence official told NBC News.

The referendum put the focus on Kirkuk, a multi-ethnic city rich with oil fields that historically has been part of the Kurdish region. Saddam Hussein orchestrated a mass movement of Arabs to the city, displacing Kurds from their homes. In the years after his fall, Kurds began returning, but the occupying American forces carefully mediated the status of the city between Baghdad and the Kurds.

In public, U.S. officials tried to downplay the role of Iranian-backed Shiite militias in seizing Kirkuk.

Asked about it Tuesday, a Pentagon spokesman, Army Col. Ryan Dillon, said, "We do not have reports of…the types of units that you had mentioned."


Iraqi people celebrate after Kirkuk was seized by Iraqi forces as they gather on the street of Baghdad, Iraq on Oct. 18, 2017. Khalid al-Mousily / Reuters
However, Kurdish officials point to a Facebook video of a ceremony in which the Iraqi flag was raised at a government building. It shows two controversial figures on hand: Hadi al-Amiri, the head of the Badr Organization, an Iranian-backed political party; and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who has been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury for acts of violence against Americans, and is considered a close adviser to Soleimani.

Three days before that flag raising, on Oct. 13, Trump announced his new Iran strategy.

"Our policy is based on a clear-eyed assessment of the Iranian dictatorship, its sponsorship of terrorism, and its continuing aggression in the Middle East and all around the world," Trump said.

Trump also announced new sanctions on Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).

The timing of the Kirkuk incursion was not a coincidence, Khedery said.

"Iran is intentionally seeking to challenge and humiliate President Trump only days after the U.S. designated the IRGC," he said. "Tehran is testing our resolve, and our allies and foes are all closely watching how this will unfold."

transparent-placeholder.gif

Ken Dilanian
Carol E. Lee
Vivian Salama
Topics News, Investigations, Military, U.S. news, World, Mideast
First Published Oct 18 2017, 6:20 pm ET
Next Story Raqqa Recaptured From ISIS by U.S.-Backed Militias
 
Or Barzani to attack officials with his militia.

If i remember correct, Iraqi parliament demanded to arrest those who were responsible with illegal referendum. The responsible guy is, Barzani.

If officials moves to Erbil to arrest him in the name of Law, and if Barzani orders his peshmerga to open fire at officials, it will be declaration of war to Bagdat.

You may not completely disband KRG as a whole but you can clearly justify to take Erbil, and there will only Suleimani left. I am completely sure that Barzani will resist and not just get arrested.
I doubt Iraq wants to escalate the situation to that scale . at least not right now . maybe a better time and won't forget parliament has no authority to order somebody arrested for that Iraq had court of law.

Iranian General Helped Iraqis Seize Kirkuk From U.S. Allies
by Ken Dilanian, Carol E. Lee and Vivian Salama



A few days after the Trump administration announced a new, get-tough approach to Iran, one of that country's top military commanders and the armed Shiite militias he supports played a key role in the seizure of an important Iraqi city from the U.S.-backed Kurds, according to Iraqi, Kurdish and American officials.

Former U.S. national security officials told NBC News the Iranian-brokered seizure of oil-rich Kirkuk by the Iraqi government and its militia partners, which heightens the risk of civil war, amounts to an embarrassing strategic blow to the U.S. at the hands of Iran.

"It is a catastrophic defeat for the United States and a fantastic victory for Iran's Revolutionary Guard, proving that Qassem Soleimani gets his way once again," said Ali Khedery, a former senior adviser on Iraq policy in the Bush and Obama administrations.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/mideast/iranian-general-helped-iraqis-seize-kirkuk-u-s-allies-n811026
Soleimani is head of the Iranian military's special forces and extraterritorial operations. The major general commands an elite unit known as the Quds Force and has been dubbed the most powerful intelligence operative in the Middle East. According to Kurdish and Iraqi officials, he traveled to Kirkuk last week to weigh in on the dispute between Baghdad and the Kurds over the strategically important city of Kirkuk.


Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani (C) attends Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's (not seen) meeting with the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) on September 18, 2016 in Tehran, Iran. Anadolu Agency / Getty Images file
Kurdish officials and former U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News Soleimani helped negotiate a deal under which one Kurdish faction would abandon its checkpoints and allow Iraqi government forces, backed by Iranian-supported Shiite militias, to take the city uncontested. That explains, they say, why there was so little fighting as Iraqi forces, armed with heavy weapons provided by the U.S., seized Kirkuk from the Kurds, who also carry American weapons and have been the most stalwart U.S. ally in the fight against ISIS.

“It is a catastrophic defeat for the United States.”
"We're confident that Qassem Soleimani engineered, guided, directed, manipulated this deal," Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, the Kurdish representative in Washington, told NBC News.

She said Soleimani used a carrot-and-stick approach, threatening force and offering financial inducements to certain elements of a Kurdish faction whose soldiers abandoned their positions.

A spokesman for Iraq's Shiite-dominated paramilitary forces, Mouin al-Khadhimy, acknowledged to NBC News that Soleimani was in Iraq in recent days — to ease tensions between Iraqi and Kurdish forces, al Khadhimy said.

Ali Akbar Velayati, a foreign policy adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in an Oct. 17 statment reported by Al-Monitor that "Iran plays no role in the Kirkuk operation."

President Donald Trump said the U.S. wasn't taking sides, and his government neither condemned the move by Baghdad nor mentioned the Iranian component.

"We remain very concerned about the situation in northern Iraq," said Michael Anton, spokesman for the National Security Council. "We urge both parties to stand down and resolve any dispute peacefully and politically, remain united in the fight against ISIS and remain united against a common threat in Iran."


Kurdish gunmen take up position on a street in central Kirkuk city, northern Iraq, on Oct. 16, 2017. Afan Abdulkhaleq / EPA
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) warned Monday there would be "severe consequences" if Baghdad used U.S. arms against the Kurds.

"The United States provided equipment and training to the government of Iraq to fight [the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS)] and secure itself from external threats — not to attack elements of one of its own regional governments, which is a longstanding and valuable partner of the United States," McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement.

Critics accused Trump of wilting in the face of Iran's tough tactics.

"This is the first real tangible challenge to the Trump Iran doctrine, and we have our answer: it seems like there is nothing behind it," Michael Barbero, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general who served in Iraq and has close ties to the Kurds, told NBC News.

By allowing Iran to facilitate an Iraqi takeover of Kirkuk, Khedery added, "We have undermined our secular moderate, Western-leaning Kurdish allies in the Middle East. Our foes will be emboldened, our allies shaken."

This is the first real tangible challenge to the Trump Iran doctrine.”
U.S. officials, not authorized to be named speaking publicly, disputed the idea that Iran got the better of the Trump administration. They argue that Kirkuk was always going to be a flashpoint between Baghdad and the Kurds, whether or not Iran was involved. Iran's heavy involvement in Iraq has long been a fact of life, they say — something the U.S. has no choice but to live with.

U.S. officials have long sought to convince the Kurds to postpone a referendum declaring independence from Iraq. After U.S. forces left Iraq in 2011, Vice President Joseph Biden and other American officials conducted hours of diplomacy in an effort to mediate the situation.


Iraqi police monitor as people gather in the street in the city of Kirkuk to celebrate on Oct. 18, 2017, after Iraqi government forces retook almost all the territory disputed between Baghdad and the autonomous Kurdish region, crippling its hopes of independence after a controversial referendum. Ahmad Al-Rubaye / AFP - Getty Images
Brett McGurk, the U.S. diplomat most closely focused on Iraq and ISIS policy, was unable to convince the Kurds to continue postponing the vote, which finally occurred in September. Once the Kurds voted overwhelmingly in favor of separating, American officials declared the referendum illegitimate, in keeping with their policy of trying to maintain Iraq as a single country.

"We were never going to support the Kurds in a fight with the Iraqi government," one U.S. intelligence official told NBC News.

The referendum put the focus on Kirkuk, a multi-ethnic city rich with oil fields that historically has been part of the Kurdish region. Saddam Hussein orchestrated a mass movement of Arabs to the city, displacing Kurds from their homes. In the years after his fall, Kurds began returning, but the occupying American forces carefully mediated the status of the city between Baghdad and the Kurds.

In public, U.S. officials tried to downplay the role of Iranian-backed Shiite militias in seizing Kirkuk.

Asked about it Tuesday, a Pentagon spokesman, Army Col. Ryan Dillon, said, "We do not have reports of…the types of units that you had mentioned."


Iraqi people celebrate after Kirkuk was seized by Iraqi forces as they gather on the street of Baghdad, Iraq on Oct. 18, 2017. Khalid al-Mousily / Reuters
However, Kurdish officials point to a Facebook video of a ceremony in which the Iraqi flag was raised at a government building. It shows two controversial figures on hand: Hadi al-Amiri, the head of the Badr Organization, an Iranian-backed political party; and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who has been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury for acts of violence against Americans, and is considered a close adviser to Soleimani.

Three days before that flag raising, on Oct. 13, Trump announced his new Iran strategy.

"Our policy is based on a clear-eyed assessment of the Iranian dictatorship, its sponsorship of terrorism, and its continuing aggression in the Middle East and all around the world," Trump said.

Trump also announced new sanctions on Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).

The timing of the Kirkuk incursion was not a coincidence, Khedery said.

"Iran is intentionally seeking to challenge and humiliate President Trump only days after the U.S. designated the IRGC," he said. "Tehran is testing our resolve, and our allies and foes are all closely watching how this will unfold."

transparent-placeholder.gif

Ken Dilanian
Carol E. Lee
Vivian Salama
Topics News, Investigations, Military, U.S. news, World, Mideast
First Published Oct 18 2017, 6:20 pm ET
Next Story Raqqa Recaptured From ISIS by U.S.-Backed Militias
Look how irresponsible and destructive Iran policies in middle east are ,look how Iran used terrorist groups like irgc to stop another bloodbath in middle east and stop another middle east country from getting balkanized .
How destructive and irresponsible of IRGC that is not like apathetic trump didn't choose not our problem strategy so another full blown conflict blow in region and provide more blood and fire for some countries arm industries.
Bad bad bad irgc . now us can call irgc a financial terrorists because of harming us plan of harvesting millions of $$$ in arm deals from another middle eastern conflict
 
Well it was bad timing by barezanni that shows his lack of judgement.it. is a gift to ISIS to get regrouped .if barezanni wanted to get independence he must have waited after ISIS was dealt with and got it at discussion table like civilized people not by such underhanded moves.
ISIS is the only Reason Kurds are given any legitimate support from the west. If ISIS is gone then their reason to exists will cease and nobody will give a damn if they want to carve out an independent country out of 4 Major Middle Eastern Powers. and then Best of Luck to Kurds Fighting Against Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq Combined in a Land Locked area.
ISIS is their Golden Trump Card.
 

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