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Friday, March 20, 2015

CFR Update: New Islamic State Video Depicts Peshmerga Beheadings

TOP OF THE AGENDA
New Islamic State Video Depicts Peshmerga Beheadings
The self-declared Islamic State published (Rudaw) a new video purportedly showing the beheadings of three Kurdish peshmerga fighters in Iraq. Militants in the video also threatened to kill dozens of other captives. Kurdish fighters have been successful in mounting offensives against the Islamic State and retaking militant-controlled territory. More than one thousand peshmerga personnel have died in combat (Reuters) against the Islamic State since last summer. Meanwhile, the Islamic State claimed (Al Jazeera) responsibility for Wednesday's deadly attack in Tunis that left twenty-three people dead. The gunmen who carried out the attack at the National Bardo Museum are believed to have trained in neighboring Libya.
TOP OF THE AGENDA
New Islamic State Video Depicts Peshmerga Beheadings
The self-declared Islamic State published (Rudaw) a new video purportedly showing the beheadings of three Kurdish peshmerga fighters in Iraq. Militants in the video also threatened to kill dozens of other captives. Kurdish fighters have been successful in mounting offensives against the Islamic State and retaking militant-controlled territory. More than one thousand peshmerga personnel have died in combat (Reuters) against the Islamic State since last summer. Meanwhile, the Islamic State claimed (Al Jazeera) responsibility for Wednesday's deadly attack in Tunis that left twenty-three people dead. The gunmen who carried out the attack at the National Bardo Museum are believed to have trained in neighboring Libya.
ANALYSIS
"As much as Islamic State is a cause of chaos in the Middle East, it is also a symptom. Its ideology feeds off Sunnis’ sense of victimhood. The group has taken root across the region, and especially where the state has collapsed. Defeating it is ultimately a matter of rebuilding governments in the Arab world—a task that will take decades. Cutting back the caliphate is just the vital first step," writes the Economist.
"Effectively ceding the war against the Islamic State to Iran is a mistake that will make Iran the Mid-East’s de facto hegemon and virtually ensure a regional Sunni-Shiite conflict zone with global impact. It will ensure a partition of Iraq that will precipitate a war over the nation’s resources between the Kurdish, Sunni, and Shiite rump States," writes retired Colonel Gary Anderson in Foreign Policy.
"Tunisia has been the biggest contributor of foreign jihadists to the war in Syria and Iraq; many of these fighters joined ISIS, and the Tunisian government has acknowledged that hundreds of them have returned home. In 2013, two leftist politicians were assassinated by radical Islamist militants, provoking domestic political crises. Since then, militias have been battling for control of neighboring Libya, causing cross-border arms trafficking to flourish," writes Mischa Benoit-Lavelle in the New Yorker

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