Last year, 90,000 mosques prayed Qur’anic “conquest” prayers for victory against the Kurds, calling on Muslims to be “ruthless against unbelievers,” right before Erdogan’s thousands of soldiers were dispatched to “decimate” the Kurds.
Now the Turkish Interior Ministry has announced that Turkey and Iran have joined forces “against Kurdish separatist militants of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).” Erdogan refers to Kurdish independence fighters as militants and terrorists, and has long aimed to destroy the historic culture and identity of the Kurds.
This new alliance between Iran and Turkey against the Kurds represents an escalation and troubling partnership between two major jihad-supporting countries, one Sunni and the other Shia.
The violent jihad against the Kurds, like so many others, remains largely unnoticed by the Western establishment media.
“Turkey and Iran Conduct Joint Mission Against Kurdish Militants in Iraq,” by John Hayward, Breitbart, March 18, 2019:
The Turkish Interior Ministry announced on Monday that Turkey and Iran carried out a joint operation against Kurdish separatist militants of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), with full results yet to be announced. The operation was apparently conducted in the Qandil mountains of Iraq’s Irbil province, about 25 miles from the Turkish border.
Daily Sabah noted on Monday that Iran also has a Kurdish militant organization, the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), which operates from the same area of Iraq and launches periodic operations across the border into Iran.
As far as the Turkish government is concerned, the PKK is a terrorist umbrella organization that includes most armed Kurdish groups in Syria and Iraq, including organizations like the Syrian YPG that have been officially allied with the United States against ISIS.
Turkey has occasionally bombed PKK bases in Iraq, and Iran has battled PJAK forces, but Monday’s raid is the first confirmed joint Turkish-Iranian operation against the PKK.
The Iraqi army reported clashes with PKK militants on Sunday, leading the Jerusalem Post to speculate that a triple Turkish-Iranian-Iraqi alliance against the Kurdish militants could be developing.
Such an alliance might have been inevitable ever since a brief ceasefire between Turkey and the PKK collapsed in 2015 and the tide of the Syrian civil war began to turn, leading to the announced withdrawal of American troops that served as a tripwire against Turkish assaults on the Syrian Kurds.
Among the politically awkward aspects of the anti-Kurdish crackdown is the presence of armed Yazidi groups in northern Iraq. The Yazidis are a tiny minority that was almost wiped out by the Islamic State, but found shelter with the Kurds, who helped them develop militia units to protect themselves in the future. At least one notable Yazidi leader has been accused by Turkey of joining the PKK…..