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Barzani Agrees with Leader of International Coalition to Maintain Security in Iraq

President of the Kurdistan Region Nechervan Barzani receives Major General Joel B. Vowell in Erbil. (Kurdistan Region Presidency)
President of the Kurdistan Region Nechervan Barzani receives Major General Joel B. Vowell in Erbil. (Kurdistan Region Presidency)
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Barzani Agrees with Leader of International Coalition to Maintain Security in Iraq

President of the Kurdistan Region Nechervan Barzani receives Major General Joel B. Vowell in Erbil. (Kurdistan Region Presidency)
President of the Kurdistan Region Nechervan Barzani receives Major General Joel B. Vowell in Erbil. (Kurdistan Region Presidency)

President of the Kurdistan Region Nechervan Barzani received on Tuesday Major General Joel B. Vowell, commander of the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve of the Global Coalition in Iraq and Syria, to discuss terrorism and attacks by factions against coalition bases.

The visit came days after the federal government decided to form a bilateral committee to make arrangements for ending the mission of the US-led international coalition in the country.

According to a statement by the Kurdistan Region Presidency, the two officials discussed the recent drone strikes against coalition bases in Erbil and “emphasized the importance of safeguarding the Coalition Forces and diplomatic representatives in Iraq.”

Since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, pro-Iranian armed factions have launched dozens of attacks with drones and missiles on the locations of US forces in Iraq and Syria, in response to what they consider American support for Israel in the war.

Military bases operated by US forces in Iraq and Syria were targeted by around 100 armed attacks during the past three months, most of which were carried out by explosive drones.

The issue of ending the mission of the international coalition in Iraq has stirred heated debate in Iraq, especially the ruling pro-Iran Coordination Framework, which insists on the need to end the task of these forces.

Other forces believe it isn't in Iraq’s interest to lose the assistance provided by the US to the country.

In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, former Ambassador and Diplomat Ghazi Faisal ruled out the ability of the Iraqi government to end the coalition’s mission for a number of reasons.

“The pressure via text message on Washington does not express and is not consistent with the government’s constitutional and legal responsibilities and its duties in international and regional relations. [The government] is acting purely in a reactive manner without considering the national interest,” he stated.

Earlier this week, the government launched a survey by sending text messages to citizens, asking them if they oppose or support the deployment of the international forces.

The presence of US forces in Iraq is based on an agreement that allows them to work within the framework of the mission of the international coalition to eliminate ISIS. But the Iraqi government says that its forces have “become capable” of protecting the country.

The US Department of Defense said on Monday it does not currently plan to pull out its forces, numbering about 2,500 soldiers, from the country.

“Right now, I’m not aware of any plans (for withdrawal). We continue to remain very focused on the defeat ISIS mission,” US Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder told a news briefing.

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Arab World

In Ruined Homes, Palestinians Recall Assad's Torture

The last lesson in this Yarmuk elementary school is still on the board, 12 years after the Palestinian camp was engulfed in Syria's civil war. Aris MESSINIS / AFP
The last lesson in this Yarmuk elementary school is still on the board, 12 years after the Palestinian camp was engulfed in Syria's civil war. Aris MESSINIS / AFP
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In Ruined Homes, Palestinians Recall Assad's Torture

The last lesson in this Yarmuk elementary school is still on the board, 12 years after the Palestinian camp was engulfed in Syria's civil war. Aris MESSINIS / AFP
The last lesson in this Yarmuk elementary school is still on the board, 12 years after the Palestinian camp was engulfed in Syria's civil war. Aris MESSINIS / AFP

School lessons ended in Syria's biggest Palestinian refugee camp on October 18, 2012, judging by the date still chalked up on the board more than a decade later.
"I am playing football"; "She is eating an apple"; "The boys are flying a kite" are written in English.
Outside, the remaining children in the Damascus suburb of Yarmuk now play among the shattered ruins left by Syria's years of civil war.
And as the kids chase through clouds of concrete dust, a torture victim -- freed from jail this month when opposition factions toppled Bashar al-Assad's government -- hobbles through the rubble.
"Since I left the prison until now, I sleep one or two hours max," 30-year-old Mahmud Khaled Ajaj told AFP.
Since 1957, Yarmuk has been a 2.1-square-kilometer (519-acre) "refugee camp" for Palestinians displaced by the founding of the modern Israeli state.
Shattered city
Like similar camps across the Middle East, over the decades it has become a dense urban community of multi-storey concrete housing blocks and businesses.
According to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, at the start of Syria's conflict in 2011 it was home to 160,000 registered refugees.
Rebellion, air strikes and a siege by government forces had devastated the area and left by September this year only 8,160 people still clinging to life in the ruins.
With Assad's fall, more may return to reopen the damaged schools and mosques, but many like Ajaj will have terrible tales to tell of Assad's persecution.
The former Free Syrian Army opposition fighter spent seven years in government custody, most of it at the notorious Saydnaya prison, and was only released when Assad's rule ended on December 8.
Ajaj's face is still paler than those of his neighbors, who are tanned from sitting outside ruined homes, and he walks awkwardly with a back brace after years of beatings.
At one point, a prison doctor injected him in the spine and partly paralyzed him -- he thinks on purpose -- but what really haunts him was the hunger in his packed cell.
"My neighbors and relatives know that I had little food, so they bring me food and fruit. I don't sleep if the food is not next to me. The bread, especially the bread," he said.
"Yesterday, we had bread leftovers," he said, relishing being outside after his windowless group cell, and ignoring calls from his family to come to see a concerned aunt.
"My parents usually keep them for the birds to feed them. I told them: 'Give part of them to the birds and keep the rest for me. Even if they are dry or old I want them for me'."
As Ajaj spoke to AFP, two passing Palestinian women paused to see if he had any news of missing relatives since Syria's ousted leader fled to Russia.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has documented more than 35,000 cases of disappearances under Assad's rule.
Ajaj's ordeal was extreme, but the entire Yarmuk community has suffered on the frontline of Assad's war for survival, with Palestinians roped into fighting on both sides.
Bullets lodged
The graveyard is cratered by air strikes. Families struggle to find the tombs of their dead amid the devastation. The scars left by mortar strikes dot empty basketball courts.
Here and there, bulldozers are trying to shift rubble and the homeless try to scavenge re-usable debris. Some find work, but others struggle with trauma.
Haitham Hassan al-Nada, a lively and wild-eyed 28-year-old, invited an AFP reporter to run his hand over lumps he says are bullets still lodged in his skull and hands.
His father, a local trader, supports him and his wife and two children after Assad's forces shot him and left him for dead as a deserter from the government side.
Nada told AFP he fled service because, as a Palestinian, he did not think he should have to serve in Syrian forces. He was caught and shot multiple times, he said.
"They called my mother after they 'killed' me, so she went to the airport road, towards Najha. They told her 'This is the dog's body, the deserter'," he said.
"They didn't wash my body, and when she was kissing me to say goodbye before they buried me, suddenly and by God's power, it's unbelievable, I took a deep breath."
After Nada was released from hospital, he returned to Yarmuk and found a scene of devastation.