“By any standard, the horrific crime uncovered last night ranks as a stark reminder of why human smuggling networks must be pursued, caught and punished. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations works year-round to identify, dismantle, and disrupt the transnational criminal networks that smuggle people into and throughout the United States. These networks have repeatedly shown a reckless disregard for those they smuggle, as today’s case demonstrates. I personally worked on a tragic tractor trailer case in Victoria, Texas in 2003 in which 19 people were killed as a result of the smugglers’ total indifference to the safety of those smuggled and to the law.
“The men and women of ICE are proud to stand alongside our law enforcement partners, including locally and at the U.S. Department of Justice, to combat these smuggling networks and protect the public and those who would fall victim to their dangerous practices that focus solely on their illicit profits. So long as I lead ICE, there will be an unwavering commitment to use law enforcement assets to put an end to these practices.”
***
Texas Public Radio
FNC: A suspect arrested in connection with the deaths of at least 10 people packed into a sweltering tractor-trailer is due in court Monday over his alleged role in the immigrant-smuggling attempt gone wrong.
Federal prosecutors said they planned to bring charges against James Mathew Bradley Jr., 60, of Clearwater, Florida, who is due to appear in federal court at 11 a.m. local time.
U.S. Attorney Richard Durbin Jr. did not say whether Bradley was the driver of the truck, although investigators said earlier that the driver was in custody.
Authorities initially discovered eight bodies Sunday inside the crowded 18-wheeler parked outside a Walmart in the summer heat. Two additional victims later died at the hospital.
Officials feared the death toll could still rise, because nearly 20 others rescued from the truck were in dire condition, many suffering from extreme dehydration and heatstroke, officials told the Associated Press.
Based on initial interviews with survivors of the San Antonio tragedy, more than 100 people may have been packed into the back of the 18-wheeler at one point in its journey, ICE acting Director Thomas Homan said. Officials said 39 people were inside when rescuers arrived, and the rest were believed to have escaped or hitched rides to their next destination.
Four of the survivors appeared to be between 10 and 17 years old, Homan said. Investigators gave no details on where the rig began its journey or where it was headed.
Mexican nationals were among both the survivors and the dead, Mexican Consul General in San Antonio Reyna Torres said, without giving a specific number. Torres said the consulate has been in contact with relatives both in Mexico and in the U.S.
Guatemala’s foreign ministry, meanwhile, said at least two Guatemalans were on the abandoned rig. The two male survivors told Guatemalan consulate officials that they crossed the border by foot at Laredo and boarded the tractor-trailer, according to Tekandi Paniagua, communications director for the foreign ministry. The pair told officials their final destination was Houston, Paniagua added. More here.
Category Archives: Insurgency
Interpol’s List of 173 ISIS Suicide Brigade
More from WaPo
July 11: Ahead of a meeting of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, INTERPOL has underlined the need for military success against the group to be translated into actionable intelligence for police around the world.
With mounting pressure on former ISIS strongholds likely to result in increased numbers of battle-hardened terrorists returning home, fleeing to neighbouring countries, or joining other conflicts, it is vital that critical information left by retreating fighters and recovered by Global Coalition forces is quickly shared with the global law enforcement community through a secure multilateral platform.
Details of more than 18,000 Foreign Terrorist Fighters (FTFs) have now been shared via INTERPOL’s global network with an increasing amount being sourced from the conflict zones. Biometric data such as photos, fingerprints and DNA profiles have already led to the positive identification of terrorists around the world, including via facial recognition.
“Although there has been military success in Iraq and Syria, ISIS retains the ability to direct or inspire deadly attacks across multiple continents,” said Secretary General Jürgen Stock.
“Experience has shown the essential role that military-police cooperation plays in keeping pace with the threat as it disperses beyond the conflict zone. INTERPOL provides an established and trusted interface which supports this cooperation on a global level,” added Secretary General Stock.
INTERPOL projects Vennlig and Hamah have enabled evidence of terrorist activity collected from Iraq and Afghanistan to be shared with law enforcement, intelligence and defence agencies in more than 60 countries, leading to the identification of previously unknown terrorists and facilitation networks.
“Once terrorist information is shared at the global level, every traffic check, passport control or random search holds the potential for a break in a terrorism investigation or to foil an evolving plot,” said Mr Stock.
“However, countries worldwide need to ensure their frontline officers have direct access to INTERPOL’s databases in order to make these crucial identifications and prevent terrorists from traveling with ease to conduct attacks,” added Mr Stock pointing to the recent statements by the G7 and G20 calling for countries to make full use of INTERPOL’s information systems.
With an increasing number of individuals involved in terrorist attacks having a criminal background, Secretary General Stock also underlined the need for the most basic information stored in national police systems to be shared at the global level.
Fingerprint checks of arrested foreign nationals by one European country against INTERPOL’s databases resulted in 11 hits in just one two-week period in June.
Individuals linked to recent terrorist attacks in Europe, including at least one suspect travelling on a passport recorded in the Stolen and Lost Travel Documents database, had been subjects of INTERPOL alerts prior to the attacks.
“Unless and until countries ensure vital policing information is in the hands of frontline officers, the threat will continue to outpace our response,” said Secretary General Stock.
“The networks are in place, the officers are on our streets, we just need to make sure that all possible dots are connected,” concluded the INTERPOL Chief.
Interpol circulates list of 173 suspected members of Isis suicide brigade
Guardian: Interpol has circulated a list of 173 Islamic State fighters it believes could have been trained to mount suicide attacks in Europe in revenge for the group’s military defeats in the Middle East.
The global crime fighting agency’s list was drawn up by US intelligence from information captured during the assault on Isis territories in Syria and Iraq.
European counter-terror networks are concerned that as the Isis “caliphate” collapses, there is an increasing risk of determined suicide bombers seeking to come to Europe, probably operating alone.
There is no evidence that any of the people on the list, whose names the Guardian has obtained, have yet entered Europe, but the Interpol circulation, designed to see if EU intelligence sources have any details on the individuals, underlines the scale of the challenge facing Europe.
The list, sent out by the general secretariat of Interpol on 27 May, defines the group of fighters as individuals that “may have been trained to build and position improvised explosive devices in order to cause serious deaths and injuries. It is believed that they can travel internationally, to participate in terrorist activities.”
The data was originally collected by the US intelligence “through trusted channels”. The material was handed over to the FBI, which transmitted the list to Interpol for global sharing.
A note appended to the Interpol list circulated in Italy explains how the terrorist database was constructed, putting together the pieces of the puzzle from hundreds of elements, mainly gathered when Isis local headquarters were captured.
“The people,” the note says, “have been identified through materials found in the hiding places of Isil, the Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant.” The note adds that “it emerges that those subjects may have manifested willingness to commit a suicidal attack or martyrdom to support Islam”.
The list shows the suspects’ names, the date Isis recruited them, their last likely address including the mosque at which they have been praying while away fighting, their mother’s name and any photographs.
For each of the fighters, an ID was created to ensure that each member country in the Interpol network could integrate the data with local databases.
Interpol has asked its national partners for any information they might have about each name on the list, and any other background personal data they have on their files, such as border crossings, previous criminal offences, biometric data, passport numbers, activity on social media and travel history.
The information will then be included in Interpol’s ASF (automatic search facility) database in order to possibly put the names on a higher level watch list.
US intelligence is apparently confident about the reliability of the sources used to compile the list. But western counter-terrorism forces have said they face an uphill struggle identifying potential suspects, who have access to a mountain of false documents, double identities and fake passports.
Interpol stressed the list’s transmission came as part of its role circulating information between national crime-fighting agencies. “Interpol regularly sends alerts and updates to its national central bureaux (NCB) on wanted terrorists and criminals via our secure global police communications network,” a spokesman said. “It is the member country which provides the information that decides which other countries it can be shared with.
“The purpose of sending these alerts and updates is to ensure that vital policing information is made available when and where it is needed, in line with a member country’s request.”
A European counter-terrorism officer said one of the purposes of circulating the list around Europe was to identify those on it who might have been born and raised in European countries.
In 2015 the UN considered there were 20,000 foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria, of whom 4,000 were from Europe, but there has not previously been a specific list of those fighters including those born in the Middle East who have been identified as potential suicide bombers.
The speed with which Isis fighters are likely to attempt to reach Europe will depend on a range of issues including whether the group tries to set up a new base in Syria in the wake of the impending fall of Raqqa, its last major redoubt in north-west Syria. There is a growing suggestion that Isis fighters will shift south from Raqqa to the defensible territory stretching from Deir el-Zourez-Zor to Abu
The jihadi group is currently struggling to come to terms with the loss of Mosul in northern Iraq following a battle that produced some of the most brutal fighting since the end of the second world war.
The parallel advance on Raqqa, the group’s other urban stronghold in the region, has been stalled partly due to the severity of the resistance being mounted against the Syrian Democratic Forces made up of an alliance of Kurds, Arabs and US Special forces.
US Army Col Ryan Dillon on Friday estimated there were around 2,000 Isis militants in the city, who he said were using civilians and children as human shields. The distance between SDF forces on the eastern side of the city and on the western fronts is now just under 2km.
The United Nations estimates that about 190,000 residents of Raqqa province have been displaced since April, including about 20,000 since the operation to seize the provincial capital began in early June.
US diplomats this week admitted that the SDF forces, due to their ethnic make-up, will be constrained from going south of Raqqa to pursue Isis as far as Deir Azzour, saying this may be the task of the Syrian forces under Bashar al Assad, or even Iranian-backed Shia militia.
Hezbollah Terror Cells in Lebanon and Latin America
Kuwait expels Iranian diplomats over ‘terror’ cell: United Nations (United States) (AFP) – US Ambassador Nikki Haley on Wednesday accused Lebanon’s Hezbollah of amassing weapons and said the world must turn its attention to the actions of the powerful paramilitary organization.
Anyone ever ask or investigate the Hezbollah weapons inventory in Latin America?
No Latin American Country Has Branded Hezbollah a Terror Group Despite Ties to Major Attacks
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Latin American countries have failed to register Iranian proxy Hezbollah as a terrorist organization despite the threat it poses to the region, a Peruvian official revealed during a discussion on Capitol Hill.
The Shiite group is involved in various illicit activities in Latin America to generate money that some experts believe is used to fund terrorist activities in the Middle East.
During a discussion Wednesday on Capitol Hill hosted by the Center for a Secure Free Society (SFS), Moises Vega de la Cruz, a public prosecutor for the Peruvian government specializing in terrorism cases, revealed that “in Latin America, Hezbollah is not recognized as a terrorist organization.”
“I think Hezbollah is a threat to Latin America. Hezbollah is a terrorist organization that is advancing not only in Peru but in other Latin American countries as well,” he told Breitbart News.
Joseph Humire, an expert on Iranian activity in the Western Hemisphere and executive director of SFS, noted that no Latin American country has registered Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
The United States and the European Union have deemed Lebanon’s Shiite group Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
In the United States, Hezbollah’s main supporter Iran has been officially labeled a state sponsor of terror.
Peru recently adjudicated a case involving an alleged Hezbollah operative accused of explosives-related crimes in 2014. The individual avoided prosecution, but De La Cruz has appealed the decision.
“Most Latin Americans don’t view Islamist terrorism as a significant threat in their region and little public pressure has been placed on the establishment, reform, or improvement of weak or non-existent anti-terrorism laws across the region,” SFS pointed out in a statement. “Consequently, the Islamic State [ISIS/ISIL], Hezbollah, and other Jihadist networks and sympathizers are spreading throughout South America with impunity.”
The U.S. government has acknowledged the presence of both Shiite Hezbollah and Sunni ISIS in Latin America.
De la Cruz noted that Hezbollah maintains a presence in Peru, where it is reportedly converting people and trying to get involved politically.
The Peruvian Latina news agency reported last year that the Shiite group has registered as an official political party in Peru’s Abancay province, home to the largest concentration the country’s small Muslim community.
Hezbollah has established itself as an official political party in its main base of Lebanon.
Argentinian authorities have linked Hezbollah to fatal attacks against the South American country’s Jewish community, including the 1994 bombing of the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA)—the deadliest terrorist attack in the Western Hemisphere before September 11, 2001.
The U.S. military and the Department of State have expressed concern about the group’s presence in Latin America.
According to the U.S. State Department, Venezuela has provided a “permissive environment” that has allowed Hezbollah to thrive in the region.
Last year Michael Braun, a former DEA operations chief, told American lawmakers that Hezbollah is generating hundreds of millions from a “cocaine money laundering scheme” in Latin America that “provides a never-ending source of funding” for its terrorist operations in Syria and elsewhere.
Hezbollah is fighting on behalf of Iran on the side of the Russian-backed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
In an annual report to Congress issued earlier this year, U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) noted that “Hezbollah members, facilitators, and supporters engage in licit and illicit activities in support of the organization, moving weapons, cash, and other contraband to raise funds and build Hezbollah’s infrastructure in the region.”
SOUTHCOM is charged with overseeing American military activity in most of Latin America.
The group is believed to be operating throughout the Western Hemisphere.
Iran ‘foremost state sponsor of terrorism in 2016’: US state department
The department’s annual report on global terrorism accused the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force — which is responsible for operations outside the country — along with Iranian partners, allies, and proxies, of ‘playing a destabilising role in military conflicts in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen’
Iran was the “foremost state sponsor of terrorism in 2016”, the US state department said on Wednesday in its annual report on terrorism worldwide.
The 2016 Country Reports on Terrorism — the first released by the state department since US president Donald Trump assumed office — also highlighted Hizbollah’s increasing reach in Syria, Iraq and Yemen and an increase in “its long-term attack capabilities”.
Although the report said there had been a 9 per cent drop in global terror attacks last year from 2015, as well as a 13 per cent drop in terror-related fatalities, it stressed that “the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) remained the most potent terrorist threat to global security” in 2016.
Al Qaeda and its regional affiliates also “remained a threat to the US homeland and our interests abroad despite counter-terrorism pressure by US partners”, the report said.
On Iranian sponsorship of terrorism, the report accused the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force — which is responsible for operations outside the country — along with Iranian partners, allies, and proxies, of “playing a destabilising role in military conflicts in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen”. It also said “Iran continued to recruit fighters from across the region to join Iranian-affiliated Shia militia forces engaged in conflicts in Syria and Iraq, and has even offered a path to citizenship for those who heed this call”.
The 2016 report put more emphasis on the threat from Hizbollah than in previous years. It described the Lebanese political party and militia as “playing a major role in supporting the Syria government’s efforts to maintain control and territory, and providing training and a range of other support for Iranian-aligned fighters” in these conflict zones.
The state department said “there are reportedly about 7,000 Hizbollah fighters in Syria”, though it also highlighted that the group had lost “several senior military commanders and hundreds of fighters” in fighting there last year.
The report also highlighted Hizbollah’s continued efforts to “develop its long-term attack capabilities and infrastructure around the world”.
Justin Siberell, the state department’s acting coordinator for counter-terrorism, told The National on Wednesday that “Hizbollah maintains a sophisticated operation with [a] broad network group around the world”.
Mr Siberllel said it was unclear, however, if the Syrian conflict had boosted Hizbollah’s standing. On the one hand, the group had gained military expertise in Syria, he said, while on the other, it had suffered large number of casualties.
“It’s a mixed picture,” he said.
On Bahrain, the report said that “during 2016 the Bahraini government continued to make gains in detecting, neutralising, and containing terrorist threats from violent Shia militants and ISIS sympathisers”. It also referenced improved counter-terror co-operation with the UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries.
The report voiced concerns over Al Qaeda exploiting the ongoing war in Yemen to make gains. It said that “despite leadership losses, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) remained a significant threat to Yemen, the region, and the United States, as ongoing conflict in Yemen hindered US efforts to counter the group”. It was a similar situation with Al Qaeda’s former affiliate in Syria, the report said.
“Al Nusra Front continued to exploit ongoing armed conflict to maintain a territorial safe haven in select parts of northwestern Syria,” the report said, referring to the group that now calls itself Jabhat Fatah Al Sham.
When it came to the Emirates, the report said that in 2016 “the UAE government maintained a robust counter-terrorism and countering violent extremism (CVE) partnership with the United States through its collaboration with US law enforcement; support of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS; and counter‑messaging initiatives, such as the Sawab and Hedayah Centers.”
The report made reference to the UAE’s deployment of forces to Yemen “to counter the spread of AQAP and ISIS” there, highlighting that, “along with its Yemeni partners, the UAE military successfully ejected AQAP from the port city of Mukalla in April — depriving AQAP from millions [of dollars] in monthly income — and from the coastal towns of Balhaf and Bir Ali in December”.
The report also highlighted wins for UAE border security.
“UAE government security apparatus continued monitoring suspected terrorists in the UAE, and successfully foiled terrorist attacks within its borders,” it said, adding: “UAE customs, police, and other security agencies improved border security and worked together with financial authorities to counter terrorist finance.”
State Dept to Close War Crimes Division, Bad Decision
USAToday
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is shuttering the department’s two-decades-old war crimes office, Foreign Policy reported Monday.
The Office of Global Criminal Justice advises the Secretary of State on issues surrounding war crimes and genocide and helps form policy to address those atrocities.
According to FP, Tillerson’s office has told Todd Buchwald, the special coordinator of the OGCJ, he is being reassigned to the State Department’s office of legal affairs.
Remaining staff might be shifted to the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, FP reported.
According to FP, the closure decision comes at a time when Tillerson has been trying to reorganize the department to concentrate on pursuing economic opportunities for American businesses and strengthening U.S. military prowess.
“There’s no mistaking it — this move will be a huge loss for accountability,” Richard Dicker, the director of Human Rights Watch’s international justice program, told FP. A State Department spokesman told FP in a statement it is “currently undergoing an employee-led redesign initiative, and there are no predetermined outcomes. We are not going to get ahead of any outcomes.” More here.
*** Consider the murderers in countries such as North Korea, Syria, Iran, Yemen, Iraq, Sudan, Nigeria, Afghanistan and more….
Iraq: Execution Site Near Mosul’s Old City
Investigate, Punish Those Responsible for Any War Crimes
Satellite imagery from July 12 showing the building and Tigris riverbank seen in a video posted of soldiers throwing a detainee off a cliff in west Mosul as well as military vehicles in the vicinity. © 2017 DigitalGlobe
Mosul Liberation, Raqqa Next, A View in History
War is an ugly thing is clearly an understatement.
Then there is Aleppo, Syria.
WashingtonPost: In 1165, Benjamin of Tudela, a medieval Spanish Jewish traveler, approached the city of Mosul on the banks of the Tigris. A visitor, even a thousand years ago, could marvel at its antiquity. “This city, situated on the confines of Persia, is of great extent and very ancient,” he wrote in the chronicle of his journey. He gestured to the adjacent ruins of Nineveh, which had been sacked 15 centuries before his arrival.
Mosul, perched in Mesopotamia’s fertile river basin, was a walled trade city at the heart of the proverbial cradle of civilizations, linked to caravan routes threading east and other venerable urban centers like Aleppo to the west. It’s a city that has endured centuries of war and conflict, devastation and renewal. And even a millennium ago, though they couldn’t fathom its later uses, people were aware of Mosul’s great natural resource: Oil.
“To the right of the road to Mosul,” noted another 12th century Arab traveler, “is a depression in the earth, black as if it lay under a cloud. It is there that God causes the sources of pitch, great and small, to spurt forth.”
***
Mosul in the Middle Ages
In the wake of the First Crusade, which led to a string of Christian Crusader states taking root along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, Mosul became one of the main staging grounds for the Muslim riposte. At the time, the city was ruled by Seljuks, a Turkic tribe that had settled across swathes of the Middle East.
In 1104, an army led by the Seljuk “atabeg,” or governor, of Mosul marched west and routed a Crusader force on a plain close to what’s now the modern-day Syrian city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of the Islamic State. “For the Muslims, it was an unequaled triumph,” wrote one Arab chronicler. “The morale of the Muslims rose, their ardor in defense of their religion was enhanced.” In 1127, Imad ad-din Zengi became Mosul’s atabeg and went on to forge a regional empire that united Aleppo with Mosul and successfully took the Crusader fortress at Edessa.
Zengi’s dynasty, installed in Mosul, went on to rival both the Christian knights in the Levant and the Caliph in Baghdad. Even when the famed Kurdish general Salah ad-Din, the greatest Muslim hero in the history of the Crusades, took over a vast swathe of the Middle East toward the end of the 12th century, the Zengids of Mosul held out. Their resistance was broken in the following century — not by Crusaders or rival Muslim armies, but the conquering hordes of the Mongols.
Despite all the conflict, the city and its environs would preserve its diverse character and remain home to Muslims, Jews, Christians and other sects, as well as a busy commercial entrepot for all sorts of goods. Though produced much farther east in Bengal, the ultra-soft and light fabric known as “muslin” derives its name from Mosul, because that was the point from which this textile entered the European imagination.
An Ottoman province
By the mid-16th century, Mosul fell under Ottoman control following the successful campaigns of Turkish armies against those of Persia’s Safavid dynasty. Most of what we know as the Arabic-speaking Middle East now ruled by the Ottomans. The Ottoman-Persian rivalry, which included a dimension of Sunni-Shia strife, shaped the region’s geopolitics for centuries. The lands that now constitute Iraq, particularly its rugged north, would be the site of myriad border wars, skirmishes and sieges.
In the early 19th century, Mosul became the capital of an Ottoman vilayet, or province, that stretched over what’s now northern Iraq. After the empire’s collapse, British colonial rulers would stitch together the vilayets of Mosul, Baghdad and Basra — a sea port to the south whose environs were home to a mostly Shiite population — into the new nation of Iraq.
A legacy of Sykes-Picot
A British army marched into Mosul in 1918 toward the end of World War I, forever ending Turkish rule in Iraq. The map above, though, depicts a post-war settlement that never came about. The infamous Sykes-Picot agreement — a secret deal hatched in 1916 by the British and French diplomats whose name it still carries — carved up the lands of the Ottoman Middle East between rival spheres of British and French influence. In the initial scheme, Mosul would fall under a French protectorate; the city was seen as more closely linked to Aleppo in Syria than Baghdad at the time.
But the British coveted Mosul’s oil, while the French sought to maintain control of Syria, even though British forces had been the ones to take Damascus from the Ottomans during the war. A deal was struck that gave the British a mandate over Mosul and the French colonial rights over Syria and Lebanon. The Europeans reneged on assurances they had given Arab allies during World War I that they would allow an independent Arab state to emerge. Instead, the political map of the Middle East was shaped by British and French colonial concerns and “Sykes-Picot” became short-hand for a toxic legacy of foreign meddling and domination.
The integration of Mosul into the other vilayets to the south, writes Middle East historian Juan Cole, compelled the “British to depend on the old Ottoman Sunni elite, including former Ottoman officers trained in what is now Turkey. This strategy marginalized the Shiite south, full of poor peasants and small towns, which, if they gave the British trouble, were simply bombed by” the British air force.
The template was set. Iraq, under the rule of a British-installed monarchy, achieved independence in 1932. In a matter of decades, the monarchy would be abolished and, after a series of coups, the authoritarian Baathist party of Saddam Hussein took over. A cadre of Sunni political and military elites went on to dominate a majority Shiite nation until the 2003 U.S. invasion.
The Turkey that never was
In 1920, in its last session, a defeated Ottoman parliament declared in a six-point manifesto the conditions on which it would accept the end of World War I following the armistice in 1918. There are differing versions of the proposed borders of a shrunken Turkish state that the nationalists in the Ottoman parliament put forward — one of them is reproduced above. Some areas indicated would be allowed to hold referendums; others were considered integral Turkish territory. As you can see, though, Mosul was very much part of this vision.
Instead, the Ottoman court signed the withering Treaty of Sevres in 1920, which would have seen what’s now Turkey carved up into various spheres of influence controlled by the West, Kurds, Armenians and others. That never came to pass: Turkish nationalists in the Ottoman army mobilized and eventually forced out foreign forces. In the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, Turkey’s modern borders were set.
Mosul, though, was a sticking point, with Turkish nationalists laying claim to it and demanding Britain hold a plebiscite in the region that’s now northern Iraq. That didn’t happen, and after some fitful politicking at the League of Nations, Turkey and Britain eventually agreed to an arrangement in 1926 where Ankara dropped its claim to Mosul and the nearby cities of Kirkuk and Sulaimanyah in exchange for a portion of the region’s oil revenues over the next 25 years.
This history has bubbled up once more in the wake of the Mosul offensive: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, adamant that his country’s forces play a role in the mission, invoked the 1920 document when justifying his nation’s right to be “at the table.” Officials in Baghdad were not impressed.
The chaos of the moment
And here’s the current state of play. Mosul is now at the center of a regional conflagration: It’s occupied by an extremist Sunni organization that rose to power as the Iraqi and Syrian states imploded. An Iraqi government backed by pro-Iranian Shiite militias is seeking to retake the city with the aid of Kurdish peshmerga forces, whose fighters are well aware of their own people’s long, bitter quest for an independent Kurdish homeland. And it’s eyed by Turkey, wary of the growing aspirations of Kurdish nationalists in the region and eager to reassert its own influence in a part of the world that was once under its sway.
