Syrian Kurds Liberate 4 More Towns; Diyarbakır Mayor on Hunger Strike; More Carnage in Southeastern Turkey: Kurdistan Update, 11-17 November 2012

The carnage in Ra’s al-’Ayn, in Syria

NORTH KURDISTAN (TURKISH KURDISTAN)

Death Toll in Hakkari Battles between Turks and Kurds Rises to 43.  The death toll from three days of Turkish airstrikes and ground operations against separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (P.K.K.) fighters in southeastern Turkey’s Hakkari province which began November 8th (as reported last week in this blog) were raised by the 10th from 13 to 42.  One Turkish soldier was killed, with much of the fighting concentrated in and around Şemdinli, site of a massive ground battle between Turkey and the P.K.K. earlier this year.  Meanwhile, the Turkish military reported on November 14th that two P.K.K. field commanders had been killed along with seven other P.K.K. militants.

Kurdish Mayor, 5 M.P.s Join 700 Hunger Strikers in Turkey.  Six prominent Kurdish politicians in Turkey this week joined the massive hunger strike calling for improved conditions and rights for founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (P.K.K.), Abdullah Öcalan, among other demands.  The politicians include Osman Baydemir, the mayor of Diyarbakır, Turkish Kurdistan’s notional capital, who is the source of the information on the other five.  The others are members of Turkey’s parliament from the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (B.D.P.): Sırrı Süreyya Önder, Gültan Kışanak, Aysel Tuğluk, Adil Kurt, and Sabahat Tuncer.  About 700 Kurdish prisoners have been hunger-striking for about two months (as reported on last week in this blog).  Meanwhile, police say that a Kurd from Iran who was one of two P.K.K. members arrested in Hakkari province this week has confessed that he was part of a team that planned to set off bombs in case one of the hunger-strikers should die.

Osman Baydemir, now on hunger strike

SOUTH KURDISTAN (IRAQI KURDISTAN)

2 Kurdish Civilians Killed in Turkish Airstrike in Iraq Last Week Were Iranian.  The autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (K.R.G.) in northern Iraq has released more information about the two civilians killed in a November 6th airstrike by Turkey over the border into Iraq, ostensibly to root out rebels from Turkey’s banned separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (P.K.K.).  The two were Kurds from Iran, aged 19 and 45, who were in Iraqi Kurdistan on a business trip.  A Kurd named Abubakir Khidr, of Besta village, described the scene: “We were sleeping during the strike and when we woke up we were covered in blood.  Two men died right away and we were injured.  The other man with me ended up losing a leg.”  The head of the village, Said Hussein Ali, added, “The Turkish planes targeted a small shop where Iranian and Iraqi Kurds have conducted business for years.”

Kurdish casualties of a Turkish airstrike on Iraq

Bombings at Iraqi Kurdish Party Offices in Kirkuk Kill 5, Hurt 4.  Five people were killed and four injured on November 14th by bombings outside the offices of a Kurdish political party in Kirkuk, a Kurdish-dominated area in northern Iraq that lies outside the autonomous Kurdistan Region.  The first bomb was planted in a car; the second was set up to detonate after police gathered in response to the first explosion.

WEST KURDISTAN (SYRIAN KURDISTAN)

Kurds Take 4 Towns; Syrian Province Now in 3-Way War with Kurds, Regime, F.S.A.  The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on November 10th that Kurds in northern Syria have taken over three more towns to add to what they are calling a West Kurdistan Autonomous Region which they hope, after the civil war’s end, to make into an at least quasi-independent entity along the lines of northern Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (K.R.G.).  The towns—Derbassiye, Tall Tamr, and Amuda, all near the border with Turkey—were abandoned by regime forces after being surrounded by fighters from the Democratic Union Party (P.Y.D.), which is affiliated with Turkey’s banned separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (P.K.K.).  A fourth town, Derik, was liberated by Kurds on November 13th.  This leaves almost all of Syria’s Hasakah province outside the regime’s control.  But on November 12th fighter jets and helicopters loyal to Bashar al-Assad’s embattled dictatorship attacked the Hasakah town of Ra’s al-’Ayn (called Serêkanî in Kurdish), one controlled mostly by the opposition’s Sunni-Arab-dominated Free Syrian Army (F.S.A.), killing 18 people, including six Kurds, and injuring scores.  The other 12 included seven members of the Nusra Front, an opposition paramilitary linked to al-Qaeda.  Kurds in the area have accused the Turkish government of backing F.S.A. encroachment into Kurdish-controlled areas.

[Also, for those who are wondering, yes, this blog is tied in with a forthcoming book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas to be published by Auslander and Fox under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements, Independence Struggles, Breakaway Republics, Rebel Provinces, Pseudostates, Puppet States, Tribal Fiefdoms, Micronations, and Do-It-Yourself Countries, from Chiapas to Chechnya and Tibet to Texas.  Look for it in spring 2013.  I will be keeping readers posted of further publication news.]

Angelina Jolie in Erbil and Baghdad, Rioting in Bingöl, Kurds Rounded Up in Denmark: Kurdistan Update, 16-22 September 2012

NORTH KURDISTAN (TURKISH KURDISTAN)

Killing of 18 Turkish Police, Military Prompts Anti-Kurdish Riot in Bingöl.  In southeastern Turkey’s Bingöl province, in the Kurdish region, eight police officers were killed by a landmine on September 16th, and nine were injured.  Also in Bingöl, on September 18th, a Turkish army convoy of over 200 soldiers was attacked by Kurdish rebels armed with rockets, killing 10 and injuring more than 70.  On September 21st, a non-Kurdish mob in Bingöl, angry over the violence, attacked the local offices of the pro-Kurdish but mainstream Peace and Democracy Party (B.D.P.).  The mob hurled stones, sticks, and furniture and had to be dispersed by riot police with water cannons.

The anti-Kurdish mob in Bingöl this week.

5 Killed in Other Kurdish Violence across Turkey.  Four Turkish soldiers were killed by remote-controlled bombs in Turkey’s southeastern Hakkari province, it was announced September 15th, in an area near the borders with Iran and Iraq where fighting with the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (P.K.K.) has approximated civil war in recent weeks.  Five were wounded in the incident.  A regional public prosecutor in Tunceli province, Murat Uzun, was shot in the head as he entered his apartment building on September 19th and died the following day in the hospital.  The P.K.K. claimed responsibility for the killing.  Then, on September 20th, security forces near Diyarbakir, the notional Kurdish capital, in southeastern Turkey, defused a bomb found on a bridge near an airport, causing the cancellation of flights as the situation was investigated.  Police suspect the P.K.K.  The group is also suspected in the torching of a school in Hakkari province on September 21st.  There were no injuries in that incident.

SOUTH KURDISTAN (IRAQI KURDISTAN)

Angelina Jolie Visits Syrian Refugees, Urges Iraqi Kurds to Keep Borders Open.  The United States actress Angelina Jolie visited northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region this week, and on September 16th she visited refugee camps and urged the Kurdistan Regional Government’s prime minister, Nechirvan Barzani, as well as other officials, to keep borders open so that refugees from Syria’s civil war can seek refuge in the K.R.G. area.  Jolie is a Special Envoy for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (U.N.H.C.R.).  Over a quarter-million Syrians have fled to neighboring countries since the civil war began.

Angelina Jolie visiting with Kurds in Baghdad

EAST KURDISTAN (IRANIAN KURDISTAN)

Iranian Kurdish Dissident Survives Assassination Attempt in Sweden.  The deputy head of Iran’s dissident Kurdistan Freedom Party, Hossein Yazdanpanah, told Kurdish media this week survived an assassination attempt in Sweden last month, which he blames on Iranian agents.  But it wasn’t the first time.  “Since 1991,” he says, “the Iranian government has tried to kill me more than 10 times.”  During his stay in Sweden, visiting friends, three masked men tried to break into the house where he was staying, he said.  Despite the masks, Yazdanpanah conjectured from hair and skin tone that the men were from Lebanon and Somalia and had received paramilitary training in Iranian camps in Syria.  (That’s a lot of information to glean from merely, say, part of a wrist or an earlobe!)  Swedish police are apparently investigating the incident.

Hossein Yazanpanah, assassination survivor

KURDISH DIASPORA

Danes Bust 8 Kurds on Terrorism Fundraising Charges during Probe of T.V. Station.  In Denmark this week, authorities arrested eight people who are accused of raising and distributing money for a terrorist organization, in this case the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (P.K.K.).  Danish authorities made the discoveries during an investigation into Roj TV, a Kurdish television network based in Copenhagen.

Flag of the P.K.K.

[Also, for those who are wondering, yes, this blog is tied in with a forthcoming book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas to be published by Auslander and Fox under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements, Independence Struggles, Breakaway Republics, Rebel Provinces, Pseudostates, Puppet States, Tribal Fiefdoms, Micronations, and Do-It-Yourself Countries, from Chiapas to Chechnya and Tibet to Texas.  Look for it in spring 2013.  I will be keeping readers posted of further publication news.]

Turkey Crosses Iraq Border Again: Kurdistan Update, 2-8 September 2012

Kurds demonstrating in Aleppo, Syria, this week

TOP STORY:
KURDISH CIVIL WAR IN TURKEY STILL RED HOT:
31 KILLED IN ONGOING INSURGENCY IN SOUTHEAST;
BOLD TURKISH CROSS-BORDER OPERATION ALONG IRAQI FRONTIER KILLS 26

26 Dead as Turkish Air Force Pounds Positions in Northern Iraq and Şirnak.  The Turkish air force and army pounded suspected Kurdish rebel positions along both sides of the border between Turkey and Iraq on September 5th, with about 2,000 ground troops, 10 F-16 fighter jets, and several Cobra helicopters involved in the battle, part of which focused on Kato mountain in Turkey’s Şirnak province.  By the next day, one soldier was reported killed and two injured.  The Dwele region in northern Iraq’s mountains was hit by bombers.  There were no indications that Turkish ground troops had crossed the border into Iraq, which would have represented a raising of stakes by Ankara.  On September 7th, Turkish authorities announced that 26 Kurdish rebels had been killed in the two-day offensive.

31 Killed in Ongoing Violence in Turkish Kurdistan.  Thirty-one people were killed this week in the ongoing civil war between Turks and Kurds in southeastern Turkey.  On August 31st, a bomb derailed a train in Van province, damaging four train cars but causing no injuries.  Soon after, six Turkish soldiers on their way to investigate the blast site were hurt when a remote-controlled roadside bomb hit their vehicle.  The same day, fighting that followed an attack by the banned separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (P.K.K.) on a police station in Beytüşşebap, in Şirnak province, killed 10 Turkish soldiers and 20 P.K.K. fighters.  Acting on a tip, police forces in Şanlıurfa province, in the southeastern Kurdistan region, intercepted what they reported to be an attempted suicide-bombing on September 2nd.  The tip was reportedly that a suicide bomber was attempting to cross into Turkey from Syria.  A black minivan approached and opened fire on a police checkpoint on the evening of the 2nd, injuring three police and a nearby civilian.  In the ensuing firefight, one militant from the P.K.K. was wounded and captured, while another another reportedly detonated his suicide vest and died while being pursued on foot.  The dead militant was later identified as the perpetrator of an August 9th landmine attack on a military bus in İzmir province (reported on at the time in this blog).  In further reverberations from the İzmir attack, authorities are suggesting that three villagers found shot and killed in a field on August 7th were witnesses killed by the planners of the İzmir attack to prevent it being foiled.  Meanwhile, it was reported that the P.K.K. had released a state official named Ubeydullah Sancar, who was kidnapped in Diyarbakir on August 17th, but on September 4th the P.K.K. announced it had the day before abducted the Hakkari provincial head of the ruling Justice and Development Party (A.K.P.), Majid Tarhan.  An explosion at an armory in Afyonkarahisar, in Afyon province, which killed 25 soldiers on September 5th, was ruled an accident and, according to authorities, “not a terrorist attack” (though, as a military target, it would not have fallen under the category of terrorism anyway).

NORTH KURDISTAN (TURKISH KURDISTAN)

B.D.P. Claims Kurdish Rebels Control 400 Square Km of Southeast Turkey.  The main pro-Kurdish party in mainstream Turkish politics is inciting controversy by claiming that the banned separatist P.K.K. controls 400 square kilometers of southeastern Turkey following a pitched battle in July and August for the city of Şemdinli, in Hakkari province.  Turkey’s deputy prime minister, Bekir Bozdağ, called the claim, by Serkan Demirtaş of the Peace and Democracy Party (B.D.P.), “not even a claim, but a lie.”  Adnan Keskin, deputy chair of another opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (C.H.P.), supported Ankara’s position, stating, “Demirtaş stated that the P.K.K. controls 400 square kilometers, and he invited any minister to see this situation with his own eyes,” and that “the P.K.K. has an ‘open land control strategy,’ meaning that the P.K.K. controls all the land,” but that “control of such a large area requires a minimum of 10,000 people [and] there [are] only 700 terrorists in the area.”  Presumably in response to the B.D.P. assertion, Turkish flags began showing up on mountaintops around Şemdinli.

C.I.A. Director Petraeus in Istanbul to Discuss Syria, Kurds.  The director of the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.), David Petraeus, arrived in Istanbul on September 3rd for unannounced, high-level talks with the Republic of Turkey on matters that include the civil war in Syria and the Kurdish rebellion there and in Turkey.  Sources say that another central topic of the talks were deteriorations in relations between Turkey and Israel, in part over last year’s incident on the high seas, in which Israeli troops stormed a passenger vessel bringing humanitarian relief to the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip and, according to a United Nations report, “summarily executed” nine Turkish activists on board.

David Petraeus

Taliban Calls for Kurdish Volunteers in Afghanistan Recruitment Video.  The Taliban, the radical Salafist terrorist group operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has begun specifically targeting Kurds, whom it asks to come to Afghanistan to “join the jihad.”  In a video released August 15th on a Turkish website, Maulvi Sangin Zadran, commander of the Haqqani Network, which is a branch of the Taliban, refers to seven members of Turkey’s military recently killed by jihadists in Afghanistan and asks not just Kurds but even ethnic Turks to join the battle against Afghanistan’s occupiers from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), including the United States and Turkey.  A terrorism expert, Karen Hodgson, noted that the move was unusual, writing, “The few radical Islamic groups that are thought to include Kurds have been active mostly in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan, the main one being the Kurdistan Brigades—a group linked to the Salafi-Jihadi Ansar al-Islam movement, the insurgent group bombed by U.S. forces during the 2003 American invasion.”  A Turkey expert, Gareth Jenkins, said, however, that “there were certainly ethnic Kurds going to al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan prior to the U.S.-led military campaign in late 2001.  Most of the Turkish nationals responsible for the 2003 Istanbul bombings were ethnic Kurds who had travelled to Afghanistan for training, thought with al-Qaeda, not the Taliban.”

SOUTH KURDISTAN (IRAQI KURDISTAN)

Iraqi Kurdistan Extends Deadline for Disputed Payments by Baghdad.  The autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (K.R.G.) in northern Iraq announced September 1st that it would continue pumping oil until September 15th, “as a goodwill gesture” extending the deadline for an ultimatum to the central Iraqi government in Baghdad to make payments the K.R.G. claims are owed firms working in Kurdistan.  The exports were halted in April but restarted in August pending negotiations.  In reply, Baghdad threatened to cut the K.R.G.’s federal budget allocations by $3 billion.

[Note: See these earlier articles from this blog on related topics, especially with respect to the Kurds and the Arab Spring: “And Now Civil War ... Could Syria Break Up?” (Nov. 2011), “The Iraq War Is Over, but Is Iraq’s Partition Just Beginning?” (Dec. 2011), “Ten Separatist Movements to Watch in 2012” (Dec. 2011); “Get Ready for a Kurdish Spring” (March 28, 2012); “Shifting Alliances in the Kurdish Struggles” (April 1, 2012); “Turkish Delights Hide Ugly History” (April 4, 2012);  “Syria’s Kurds Are Setting Up a Quasi-State—How Long Can It Last?” (July 2012), “Liberation of Syrian Kurdistan Infuriates Turkey, Iraq, and the Free Syrian Army—in Fact, Everyone but Assad” (Aug. 2012), “Turkish Kurdistan Ground War in Progress, Iraq Border Crisis Eases: Kurdistan and Syria Update” (Aug. 2012), “Kurdistan Update: Both Turks & PKK Claim to Control Şemdinli, Zaza MP Abducted, Donna D’Errico and Noah’s Ark” (Aug. 2012), “Carnage Continues in Turkish Kurdistan” (Aug. 2010), “Syria and Kurdistan Update, 26 August–1 September 2012.”]

[Also, for those who are wondering, yes, this blog is tied in with a forthcoming book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas to be published by Auslander and Fox under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements, Independence Struggles, Breakaway Republics, Rebel Provinces, Pseudostates, Puppet States, Tribal Fiefdoms, Micronations, and Do-It-Yourself Countries, from Chiapas to Chechnya and Tibet to Texas.  Look for it in spring 2013.  I will be keeping readers posted of further publication news.]