Iraqi Kurdistan: Iran and Turkey united in striking the Kurds with Erdogan pushing on the “Sword with the Claw” operation

ERBIL (AsiaNews) – The Kurds in their historical lands between Iraq and Syria are caught between two fires: on the one hand Turkey which “has been bombing the mountains for a long time” on the side of Amadiya and Zakho and, on the other, the “novelty” represented by the ‘Iran which “attacks from the side of Erbil and Sulaymaniyah, much closer to the mountains”. To tell it to AsiaNews is a priest, Samir Youssef, parish priest of Enishke, diocese of Amadiya in Iraqi Kurdistan, who refers to a escalation of Tehran’s operations against “the Iranian Kurds I fled in the past. They recently hit a refugee center “, killing” at least 11 civilians “, including” a pregnant woman “, who died together with her child she was carrying” despite the doctors’ attempts to save her “.

The Iron Fist of the Ayatollahs. Despite China’s sabotage attempts, yesterday the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has approved the establishment of a mission called to investigate the violent repression of the Iranian ayatollahs, in response to the wave of protests over the killing of 22-year-old Kurdish Mahsa Amini, at the hands of the morality police. However, a move that is not enough to stop the iron fist imposed by the Tehran authorities, who in a few hours made two other excellent arrests: Farideh Moradkhani, nephew of the supreme guide Ali Khamenei, famous for his battles for the affirmation of the fundamental human rights and the footballer Voria Ghafouri, accused of having “insulted and tarnished the honor of the national team” and for “propaganda against the state”.

Erdogan’s “Sword with Claw”. On the Turkish side, the operation continues “Claw sword” (Claw sword) wanted by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan against the Kurdish Pkk and Ypg fighting groups across the border in Iraq and Syria, where a ground attack is being worked on in addition to the use of fighters and drones and has reached its fourth day. A response to the November 13 attack in Istanbul is attributed to a Kurdish cell, although the PKK has denied any involvement. The Turkish government says it has already “neutralized” 254 “terrorists” and is moving tanks and troops on the ground. For Erdogan this is “only the beginning” and the objective is to secure the border with Syria and Iraq, even if critics answer that it is only an attempt to divert attention from internal difficulties and the economic crisis.

The joint action between Turkey and Iran. “The Iranians have bombed and threatened the governments of Erbil and Baghdad – explains Father Samir – saying they want to continue the attacks against the Kurds to take away their weapons. In reality, the vast majority are refugees, whom Tehran strikes with drones and rockets while fighter jet attacks follow one another from Turkey. An incessant movement, so much so that he finds it hard to sleep because of the noise ”. A situation which, unlike the deep divisions of the past, prompts the priest to hypothesize “some form of collaboration” between the sultan and the ayatollahs in an anti-Kurdish key.

The strategic outpost of Sinjar. The target for Tehran, he continues, “could be Sinjar, already in the sights of the Islamic State in the past. A strategic outpost, a coveted mountain that could be functional to strike Israel in case of responses to an attack”. “The Kurdish people – says the parish priest of Enishke, an area where hundreds of thousands of Christians and Muslims who fled ISIS in 2014 have found refuge – are today caught in the middle of two fires: but the novelty is Iran which, due to for the first time, it is bombing forcefully even in the cities where the bases and headquarters of these opposition movements are said to be hiding”. And their rockets, he warns, have also touched “Christian villages like that of Armuta, where the inhabitants are now afraid of a further escalation”.

Carpet bombing. “The atmosphere is gloomy – he says – and carpet bombings trample on the dignity of the country and hurt” Iraq and Kurdistan. The attack in Istanbul “offered the Turkish government a pretext to strike with greater force”, while Iran seems to be exploiting the repression of protests to settle accounts with dissident groups who have fled abroad and which, according to the official version, they would blow from the outside “on the wind of protest.

In Iran the common struggle of Christians, Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds. In reality, the demonstrations in Iran have a varied nature and also see the presence of Christians, Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds” in a fight for freedom. “Of course, we are used to war – concludes Fr. Samir – I myself was born in 1975 and lived through the one with Iran, then the one with the Gulf, the US invasion and the Islamic State. We also got used to the attacks by the Turks, but this escalation with Tehran is harder to accept also on a psychological level because it brings to mind the suffering of the past”.