This is a version of our article that first appeared in War Is Boring… The future of Iraqi Kurdistan is on the minds of many in the region today as the invasion of the Islamic State in the summer of 2014 has now been successfully repelled. Many dire and pessimistic predictions can be heard, with … Continue reading
This is the English language version of our article published in LiberoReporter. The Hiza Agre Fire Force Unit 80 is a Peshmerga unit holding a front line position on the outskirts of Mosul that is unique in a number of ways. Despite often being compelled to fight with weapons they have been able to capture … Continue reading
This is the English language version of our article published today in Il Giornale’s The Eyes Of War. The old woman huddled on the floor in front of us is wiping away her tears with hands adorned in tattoos of Christian crosses. She is beseeching us, however no one present knows what she is so … Continue reading
This is the English version of our article published in Italy’s The Post Internazionale: Uncomfortably switching the selector switch on her AK-47 back and forth, 21-year-old Asmaa Dahar is detailing the sudden arrival of ISIS in her life. The small Iraqi village she is from, Seba Shekh Kheder, like many other Yazidi communities, received no warning … Continue reading
Those eyes have seen horrors you would not believe… And that is not hyperbole, I know the details of her story. ***** Continue reading
The rapid-fire invasion of Iraq and then Kurdistan by ISIS, as the Islamic State was calling itself at the time, stunned the world. For several hours, it even presented an existential crisis for Kurdistan itself as the momentum of the invasion by ISIS brought them to within mere kilometers of Erbil – with little standing … Continue reading
* The Kurdish Peshmerga have fought their way deep into Iraq, to the edge of Mosul, and are now dug in, just waiting for the order to join in the final assault to take the city back from the Islamic State… Continue reading
The Velvet Rocket 