Iraq 2015 / Cradle Of Civilization / Documentary
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By: National Geographic Full Documentary
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Iraq 2015 / Cradle Of Civilization / Documentary - Video
OTTAWACanadas military role in Iraq has flown into a fog of secrecy, with a hidden price tag and vague details of the missions Canadian aircraft are flying.
That concern was driven home Thursday when a top commander revealed that Canadian fighter jets had helped support the drop of humanitarian supplies over Iraq but refused to provide any specifics.
Col. Daniel Constable, Canadian commander of joint task force Iraq, boasted about the Canadian role in escorting another nations transport aircraft on a humanitarian mission to drop water, tents and blankets to beleaguered Iraqi civilians.
But in a Thursday briefing he declined to say how many CF-18s took part, where or when it happened or the amount of aid that was dropped.
Its a matter of operational security, Constable said in a teleconference call.
Canadian officials instead referred journalists to the U.S. military for answers, though there was nothing on the website of the U.S. Central Command about the mission.
Later in the day, Canadian military staff said CF-18s were supporting an air drop conducted by the Australians, a mission that the Australian defence department had revealed in a news release two days earlier.
Speaking on background, a military official said countries involved in the fight against the Islamic State, also known as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, are reluctant to provide detailed information about their roles for fear it could spark a retaliatory attack by ISIL sympathizers. That fear was spurred by the murders of two Canadian soldiers here in Canada in October by radicalized assailants.
Those attacks came after the Conservative government dispatched the military to join international efforts to stem the spread of Islamic State, an Al Qaeda splinter group in Iraq and Syria.
Still, the reluctance on the part of Canadians to reveal more casts a further shroud over the ongoing mission, which involves nine aircraft and 600 support personnel operating in Kuwait, plus a small team of military advisers in Iraq.
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Canada's Iraq mission hits fog of secrecy
June 23, 2014: In this file photo, fighters from the Islamic State group parade in a commandeered Iraqi security forces armored vehicle down a main road at the northern city of Mosul, Iraq. The Islamic State group is employing a broad range of strategies to subdue the Sunni Muslim tribes in Syria and Iraq, wooing some with everything from cars to animal feed while brutally suppressing those that resist its rule with mass killings and home demolitions.(AP/File)
BEIRUT The Islamic State group is employing multiple tactics to subdue the Sunni Muslim tribes in Syria and Iraq under its rule, wooing some with gifts everything from cars to feed for their animals while brutally suppressing those that resist with mass killings.
The result is that the extremists face little immediate threat of an uprising by the tribes, which are traditionally the most powerful social institution in the large areas of eastern Syria and northern and western Iraq controlled by the group. Any U.S. drive to try to turn tribesmen against the militants, as the Americans did with Sunnis during the Iraq war, faces an uphill battle.
Some tribes in Syria and Iraq already oppose the Islamic State group. For example, the Shammar tribe, which spans the countries' border, has fought alongside Kurdish forces against the extremists in Iraq. The U.S. and Iraqi governments have proposed creating a national guard program that would arm and pay tribesmen to fight, though the effort has yet to get off the ground.
But in Syria in particular, tribes have no outside patron to bankroll or arm them to take on IS, leaving them with few options other than to bend to Islamic State domination or flee.
"There are people who want to go back and fight them," said Hassan Hassan, an analyst with the Delma Institute in Abu Dhabi. "But the circumstances now mean that you can't provoke ISIS because the strategy they've followed and tactics are to prevent any revolt from inside."
The rulers of the self-styled caliphate have mastered techniques of divide and rule. Tribes are powerful institutions that command the loyalty of their members across the largely desert regions of Syria and Iraq. But they are also far from cohesive. Large tribes are divided up into smaller sub-tribes and clans that can be pitted against each other. Such divisions also emerge on their own, often in connection to control over local resources like oil wells or land.
Also, the Islamic State group itself has roots in the tribes. Though hundreds of foreign fighters have flocked to join the group, most of its leaders and foot soldiers are Iraqis and Syrians and often belong to tribes.
In eastern Syria's Deir el-Zour province, for example, the Ogeidat is one of the largest tribes. One of its major clans, the Bu Jamel, has been a staunch opponent of the extremists. Another, the Bakir, long ago allied itself to the group.
IS operatives use threats or offers of money or fuel to win public pledges of loyalty from senior tribal sheikhs. The group has also wooed younger tribesmen with economic enticements and promises of positions within IS, undermining the traditional power structure of the tribe.
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WOOED BY ISIS? Terror group uses gifts to subdue tribes in Iraq, Syria
Haider Elias boarded a plane to the United States from Iraq five years ago, leaving a life of war, ethnic violence and, as a Yazidi, religious persecution.
The Yazidis, ethnic Kurds, are an ancient religious minority whose faith, neither Christian nor Muslim, has roots in Zoroastrianism. Because he had worked as a translator for U.S. special operations forces during the war in Iraq, Elias was able to immigrate to the U.S. He now lives in southwest Houston, in close proximity to about 20 other Yazidi families.
His life here has given him ample opportunity. The 32-year-old father of three works as a translator, but has also earned a medical assistant's degree and even dreams of medical school.
But everything changed in August, when terrorist fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria swept through the Yazidis' ancestral homeland in northwestern Iraq, murdering some and driving thousands of others from their villages. Elias started receiving panicked calls from relatives and friends. They were fleeing toward Mount Sinjar, hoping to hide and find safety. His younger brother, Falah, was one person he managed to speak to. Elias could hear him hurrying and out of breath as sounds of screaming and gunfire trickled through the phone.
"Call my dad, please, and then call me back," Falah told him, before they hung up.
Minutes later, he received another call. ISIS fighters had just shot Falah in the head. He was dead.
"It was the saddest news I have ever received," said Elias, who returned Monday from Iraq, where the Yazidi community remains in crisis, with as many as 10,000 stranded in the Sinjar Mountains and thousands more in refugee camps.
"It was very frustrating and very sad," said Elias, a tall, slightly balding man with piercing eyes and a quiet voice.
He'd visited the camps, met with Iraqi officials and seen displaced friends and family living in unfinished buildings or in makeshift tents. He distributed blankets and infant formula, along with some socks and space heaters.
"It was very cold, and it was very hard for those families to live under that climate," he said. "Many were using gas-powered heaters to heat their tents, which has led to many of the homes catching fire."
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Ethnic Kurds in U.S. traumatized by crisis in Iraq
BBC Natural World - Miracle in the Marshes of Iraq - Full Documentary
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BBC Natural World - Miracle in the Marshes of Iraq - Full Documentary - Video