The Kurds have fought off the jihadists, but fear they'll be used as cannon fodder & then discarded
Full title: Isis in Iraq: The Kurds have fought off the jihadists, but fear they will be used as cannon fodder and then discarded
Patrick Cockburn reports from Halabja
19 hours ago
One of the most fought over territories on earth, Iraqi Kurdistan had suffered at the hands of Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons long before the appearance of the murderous Isis. Its cities are now dotted with half-completed hotels and apartments – economic prosperity is a fantasy. The perceived incompetence and greed of Kurdish leaders tarnishes their success against Isis. And bitter experience makes the Kurds suspicious that they will be used as cannon fodder and then discarded.
Hundreds of family members dressed in black were gathered this week at the Hamasur mosque in Sulaimaniyah, in eastern Kurdistan, to mourn 10 relatives who drowned when their boat capsized between Turkey and the Greek island of Samos as they tried to reach Europe.
All the dead came from Halabja, the city where up to 5,000 people were killed in a poison gas attack carried out by Saddam Hussein’s forces against the civilian population in 1988. “We only decided to go a week before we flew to Istanbul and paid a smuggler $2,500 per person to get us to Greece,” said Sardar Hama Rashid, a waiter in a restaurant whose wife and daughter were drowned on the crossing. He was tearful and looked stunned by what had happened. A relative, a retired truck driver called Omar Hama Amin, said the reason so many Iraqi Kurds were trying to get to Europe was “not because of the war but the economic disaster here”.
Iraqi Kurdistan is one of the most fought-over places on earth and the use of chemical weapons in Halabja was only one of the more atrocious massacres inflicted on its people over the past century. Mass graves filled with the bodies of men, women and children murdered by Isis have been unearthed weekly since the Kurds recaptured the city of Sinjar from Isis last November. But the initial terror when Isis attacked in August 2014 is over and the Kurds, helped by US air strikes, have retaken most of the territory they lost at that time. Isis can still launch surprise attacks, but in general it is the Kurdish Peshmerga who are slowly advancing.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-in-iraq-the-kurds-have-fought-off-the-jihadists-but-their-own-government-is-making-life-hell-a6856331.html
