Isis in Iraq: Peshmergas have new weapon in fight against militants – the ability to read

Written on October 27th, 2015 in politics Comments Off

… an inability to understand signs can cost fighters their lives – night school aims to change that – Published on The Independent.co.uk, by Cathy Otten, Oct 25, 2015.

A student looks diligently up at his teacher and then down at an exercise book filled with rows of letters. Shkur Miro and the rest of the men listening carefully to what their teacher tells them are Peshmerga fighters, taking a break from the war with Isis.

In the past, fighters here had their schooling interrupted by conflict and poverty. Now they are taking night classes that could save their lives.

The location of the class is a closely guarded secret for the safety of the students.

Peshmerga schools are not a new phenomenon. During their guerrilla war against Iraqi government forces, fighters would study in the mountains in caves, sometimes pausing classes to hide from attack, said the principal of the school whose father ran a similar school in the mountains.

Mr Miro, 33 is a fighter on the Makhmour front, 36 miles away from the region’s capital city of Irbil. “It’s really bothering me that I don’t know how to read road signs,” he says, after his evening Kurdish lesson. “When we go to the front line or into a recaptured village there are posters warning us not to touch things that are harmful and I can’t read them.”

Major Kamal Rashid, a representative from the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs, said 10 Peshmerga soldiers have fallen into Isis hands because they could not read the road signs and went the wrong way. Since the start of the war around 1,300 Peshmerga have died and 7,000 have been wounded … //

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Links:

A Taliban-Russia Team-Up Against ISIS? on The Daily Beast, Oct 26, 2015: the Taliban are quietly opening dialogues with the former Soviet states on Afghanistan’s border, and with Moscow;

Iraq rescue: video shows US prison raid freeing 70 hostages from Isis, 0.47 min, on The Guardian, Oct 25, 2015: Helmet-camera footage issued by Kurdistan government shows men running through compound in Hawija during operation in which US soldier was killed;

U.S Gives Up Against ISIS, Makes You The New Enemy, 9.49 min, uploaded by WeAreChange, Oct 22, 2015 …In this video Luke Rudkowski breaks down the latest news with ISIS and how the DOJ announcement it will go after anti government groups instead of ISIS itself. Just to clarify it’s not only us standing up against this propaganda, but a wide range of amazing independent journalists;

Jerusalem chaos is a warning of things to come, on Jonathan Cook: the View from Nazareth, by blog owner, Oct 19, 2015;

DIASPORA – Holocaust refugee: We owe it to mankind to allow Syrian refugees into Europe, on Jerusalem Post, by MICHELLE MALKA GROSSMAN, July 9,2015: Leslie Baruch Brent was saved from the horrors of the Holocaust thanks to the Kindertransport, which brought him to Britain. Now he says it’s time to react in kind;

Book of Enoch – the book for the Final Generation, 85.33 min, uploaded by Edgar Eddie, Aug 30, 2013;

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