Holding Fast

"We will not let anyone pass the wall of protection that we have built here. If any force tries to cross this line, we will fight them."
"Right now our plan is to stay where we are. We have no plans to go anywhere forward."
"Those places that were left by the army are very important for the security of Kirkuk. If we had not come here, it would be under the control of (ISIL)."
"We were taken by surprise by the actions of the Iraqi forces. They behaved in a very strange way. They couldn't find a way to fight within ten minutes of their bases."
"[The Kurdish Peshmerga] have a belief in what they are doing and in protecting their people. Instead of money and life, we have chosen death  [Peshmerga motto] "those who confront death".
Kurdish Brig.-Gen. Sherko Shwany

When Iraqi soldiers ran away in a panic rather than fight ultra-fundamentalist Sunnis, Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters stepped into the vacuum and prevented the invaders from overrunning a northern checkpoint on the road between Kirkuk and Tikrit.    Photograph by: Matthew Fisher/Postmedia News

 

All has not been sweetness and light between the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Iraqi Kurds; certainly al-Maliki would not be pleased that the Kurds have completely taken Kirkuk though the population is mostly Kurd with minority Sunni and Shia. The Kurds, however, saw the Iraqi military melt away at the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militias, and determined that the oil-rich area constituted a part of their own future state. A timely advance, in fact, for the Kurds.

ISIS fighters were once part of al-Qaeda, which has cut ties with the group. They have now taken control of Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit

Who, now that they are being courted by Prime Minister al-Maliki to join their fighters with that of the Iraqi military to contest the advance of ISIS and protect Baghdad are none too certain they see themselves gaining much with such an alliance. ISIS for its part, would prefer that the Peshmerga with whom they have had occasion to clash, remain uninvolved with the Iraqi military defence against their military successes and promise not to bother the Kurds if the Kurds don't bother with them; a truce.

The tit-for-tat atrocities where the Iraqi military slaughtered 44 Sunni prisoners as ISIS advanced toward the city of Baquba after ISIS boasted and the Iraqi government confirmed, that they had murdered 1,700 Iraqi Shia military, evokes nothing but disgust from the Kurds. Violent clashes had taken place between the Peshmerga troops and ISIS insurgents between the Lower Zab River and the Kirkuk-Tikrit highway, but then subsided, with the Kurds busy building a long defensive berm.

"Over the past few days they tried to attack the wall, but they couldn't get over it and they escaped", explained the general.

More refugees were created on Monday as ISIS militias moved on to take the city of Tal Afar, close to the Syrian border. The shock of the lightning advance of ISIS and their atrocities committed in the name of Sunni fanaticism, has drawn Britain and the United States to the unsavoury conclusion that they might benefit by allying themselves with the Iranian regime which has sent Republican Guard troops to aid in the protection of Baghdad, in Shiite solidarity.

Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters stand to attention in the grounds of their camp in Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq. Photograph by: SAFIN HAMED/AFP/Getty Images/File, Postmedia News