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Zheger Hassan is adjunct professor of political science at Kings University College in London, Ont., and a fellow with MENARG at the University of Western Ontario

Last month, a violent skirmish took place in Sinjar, Iraq, between Kurdish peshmerga and Sinjar Resistance Units. The peshmerga involved in the violent clashes are not the same peshmerga that Canada is training and arming. Canadas support for the Kurdish region of Iraq and its peshmerga continues to expand, yet it is not clear that Canadian officials recognize the important differences and connections between the principal Kurdish group receiving Canadian military support and other Kurdish groups in Iraq and those from neighbouring Syria and Turkey.

Minister of Defence Harjit Sajjan, and other Canadian officials, have inaccurately referred to the Kurdish peshmerga simply as Kurds and peshmerga. This is consistent with a general assumption in Western countries that Kurds in the Middle East form one large allied ethnic group. The reality is far more complicated, as will become clear in the following outline of the key Kurdish groups. This will have an impact on Canadian interventions in Iraq.

The Kurdish region of Iraq is a semi-autonomous political entity with parallel administrations: The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) governs the provinces of Dohuk and Erbil; and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) governs Sulaymaniyah province. Canadas activities in Iraq are conducted primarily with the KDP. It is the dominant political group and its leader, Masoud Barzani, is president of the region. This party holds a plurality of seats in the Kurdistan regional parliament. It also controls a large peshmerga force that is fiercely loyal to the party rather than to the Kurdistan Regional Government. The KDPs most important ally is the Turkish government, which, according to analysts, exercises significant influence over the KDPs decision-making.

The PUK remains relevant despite losing significant support from the population over the past decade. It has managed to do so because it controls its own peshmerga and receives substantial material and political support from Iran. In exchange for this support, Iran often uses the PUK as a vehicle to advance its agenda in the Kurdish region of Iraq. Iran is often accused of destabilizing the Kurdish region in an effort to maintain its influence in Iraq.

The political environment in the Kurdish region of Iraq is further complicated by the presence of peshmerga from Syria and Kurdish guerrillas from Turkey. The firefight in Sinjar involved three groups: Rojava peshmerga from Syria (Rojava is the name for the Kurdish region of Syria) and members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), as well as the Sinjar Resistance Units, who are Yazidi fighters (many of whom identify as Kurds) loyal to the PKK. It is generally believed that the Rojava peshmerga take orders from Mr. Barzani and the KDP.

The clash in Iraq suggests that the situation is untenable. The KDP has claimed the Sinjar region as its territory, but the PKK has established bases in Sinjar and it has ignored the KDPs appeals for it to leave Iraq. Instead, the PKK has entrenched itself in the Sinjar area and it has gained the loyalty and support of many Yazidis, who regard the PKK fighters as their saviours against the Islamic State. The base in Sinjar allows the PKK to simultaneously counter the KDPs growing influence in Rojava, and to launch military assaults against the very Turkish government that is allied with the KDP.

Canada is quickly becoming entangled in a web of competing political and military factions in Iraq and its new defence policy could make matters worse. One of the key pillars of the Liberal defence policy, entitled Strong, Secure, Engaged, is the expansion of Canadas military activities abroad. Iraq is one military mission that should not be expanded, but rather curtailed.

Although it is well-intentioned, Canadians should be mindful that Canada is conducting its military activities with a specific Kurdish group rather than with some broader peshmerga and Kurds. Kurdish rivalries have historical roots and violent clashes will continue to break out as each group attempts to expand its influence. Arming and training peshmerga committed to one political party will draw Canada into a protracted conflict.

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Canada caught in a web of competing Kurdish factions in Iraq - The Globe and Mail

OPEC is considering putting a limit on how much oil members Nigeria and Libya can pump, cartel delegates say, as surging production from those countries is complicating the cartels plans to influence crude prices.

Libyas crude-oil output has surged to over one million barrels a day, up from 400,000 in October, while Nigerias output has risen to 1.6 million barrels a day, up 200,000 barrels a day since October, according to JBC, a Vienna-based energy-industry consultancy.

Those increases have unnerved the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, the 14-nation cartel that joined forces last year with Russia and other big non-OPEC producers in an agreement to withhold almost 1.8 million barrels of oil CLQ7, -2.61% LCOU7, -2.41% from market every day. Libya and Nigeria were exempted from the obligation to cut because their industries had been crippled by civil unrest.

Nigeria is definitely becoming a worry for us, said a delegate to OPEC from a Persian Gulf Arab country. OPEC delegates from several other countries echoed his concerns.

An expanded version of this report is on WSJ.com.

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OPEC mulls oil production caps for Libya, Nigeria - MarketWatch

Rome - European Union officials on Thursday reaffirmed the need to tackle Europe's migrant crisis in Libya and surrounding countries, amid continued resistance in Europe to welcome refugees.

Italy announced some $34m in new investments aimed at preventing migrants from ever reaching or leaving Libya's lawless shores where smugglers operate.

And EU interior ministers warned they might sanction migrants' home countries with visa restrictions if they refuse to take their people back when their European asylum bids fail.

Europe's migration crisis was on the agenda at two meetings on Thursday: an informal EU-wide interior ministers meeting in Tallinn, Estonia, and a meeting in Rome of foreign ministers from Libya, surrounding African countries and selected European partners.

Amid mounting anti-immigrant sentiment across Europe, Italy has increased its complaints that it can no longer shoulder the burden of the migrant crisis alone.

Faced with national elections later this year or next, the Italian government has recently threatened to close its ports to non-Italian flagged rescue ships in hopes of forcing other European countries to take migrants in.

In Rome, Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano said Italy was pledging 10 million euros to help Libya's southern neighbors - Niger, Chad and Sudan - better control their borders so migrants can't reach Libya.

Another 18 million euros is slated for the voluntary repatriations of migrants who reach Libya and decide not to continue their journeys north.

"In order to lower the numbers leaving Libya, we have to lower the numbers entering," Alfano told a press conference.

In Tallinn, the interior ministers called for aid groups conducting rescue operations in the Mediterranean to follow a code of conduct, after prosecutors in Italy have accused some of complicity with Libyan-based smugglers.

The ministers also vowed to crack down on countries that refuse to take their nationals home when their asylum bids fail in Europe, including imposing limits to visa programs.

And they promised to "enhance the capacity of the Libyan coast guard," to better patrol its coasts and turn back migrant boats, despite renewed criticism from Amnesty International that such a policy is "reckless" given Libya's lawlessness.

On the eve of the meeting, the human rights group said the turnback policy risked victimizing desperate migrants even more since they risk grave human rights abuses once returned to Libya and trapped there.

More than 2 000 migrants to Europe have died at sea so far this year while over 73 380 have reached Italy. By year's end, the number of arrivals is expected to match or exceed the 181 400 who made it in 2016, which was more than in the two previous years, the report said.

Amnesty said it was "deeply problematic" to unconditionally fund and train Libya, where human rights are lacking and the coast guard has been known for violence and even smuggling.

The group cited an August incident off Libya's coast in which attackers shot at a Doctors Without Borders rescue boat. A UN panel of experts on Libya later confirmed that two officers from a coast guard faction were involved.

In May, the Libyan coast guard intervened in a search-and-rescue operation another non-governmental organization was performing. The coast guard officers threatened migrants with weapons, took command of their wooden boat and took it back to Libya, Amnesty reported.

Amnesty is not alone in its concern.

The search-and-rescue director for Save the Children, Rob MacGillivray, said in a statement that rescued migrants have recounted horrors from Libya, including claims of sexual assaults, sales to others for work and whippings and electrical shocks in detention centres.

"Simply pushing desperate people back to Libya, which many describe as hell, is not a solution," MacGillivray said.

EU Migration Commissioner Dimitri Avramopoulos conceded at a recent news conference in Paris that the EU is drawing on a country in "very precarious conditions."

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EU leaders reaffirm Libya migrant policy despite criticism - News24

A man in Naples, Florida allegedly punched a deputyin the face at a traffic stop and yelled Black Lives Matter! when being taken to jail Wednesday.

The man, 34-year-old Anthony Denson Jr., was pulled over after a police officer saw he was driving without a seat belt, Naples Daily News reports.

After the deputy who pulled him over asked for a license and registration, a verbal argument broke out between Denson and the deputy.

Denson randomly accused the deputy of wanting to shoot him, and the deputy asked him to come out of the car. Denson refused, and the deputy threatened to use a taser if he didnt listen.

Denson then gotout of the car, but used that opportunity to punch the cop in the face. He was arrested.

Later, while being booked, he yelled Black Lives Matter! (RELATED:F**k The Police!: Black Lives Matter Activists Protest Shooting In Tulsa [VIDEO])

According to the Naples Daily News report, he is being charged with: obstructing an officer; battery of a law enforcement officer; threatening to do serious bodily harm to a public official; and driving while his license was suspended, second offense.

This attack comes after a statistics show that there has been a recent increase in attacks against police officers, especially ambush killings.

Some believe this could be due to a hostile atmosphere by police created due to movements like Black Lives Matter that often paint police officers as racist.

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'Black Lives Matter!': Police Officer Attacked, Threatened At Traffic Stop - The Daily Caller

The author of The War on Cops blamed the rhetoric of Black Lives Matter activists on the slew ofattacks on police officers.

In light of the Wednesdayassassination of a New York Police Department officer, Manhattan Institute fellow Heather Mac Donald argued that the language of BLM protesters has helped fueled a hatred towards police officers.

Theres no question that the rhetoric is fueling this, Mac Donald said on the Dom Giordano Program. The statements that these cops killers have made are really echoed on daily basis by Black Lives Matter protesters. One of the chants in Chicago that you mentioned is CPD KKK how many kids did you kill today?'

Alexander Bonds, a black man with schizophrenia, fatally shot NYPD officer Miosotis Familia in the head while she sat in her squad car. Bonds, according to multiple reports, ranted about police officers in a Facebook video inSeptember 2016, calling them faggots.

Mac Donald pointed to Black Lives Matter as the starting point for such rhetoric, which invariably leads to police officers being targeted.

People have been fed the lie for the last three years by the Black Lives Matter activists and their media and political enablers that were living through an epidemic of racially biased police shootings of black men, aclaimthat is 100 percent false and, we shouldnt be surprised that kooks and people that have been fed a longstanding hatred of the police act on this, Mac Donald continued. The numbers bear this out. The cops are under attack because of this ideologically fueled and completely unjustified hatred.

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'War On Cops' Author Blames Black Lives Matter Rhetoric For Attacks On Cops - The Daily Caller