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Why the PKK Won’t Leave Mount Sinjar

09.09.2014 – Hemin Salih – BasNews, Erbil – The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has claimed that there is a plan to attack PKK fighters on Mount Sinjar with air strikes. According to a military source, the US does not want the PKK on Mount Sinjar. The PKK claims that this is because it is militarily strategic, as a position for launching long-range missiles. Recently, The People’s Protection Units (YPG), military ally of the PKK on Mount Sinjar, also claimed that there was a plan to shell areas under their control in order to expose it as controlled by Islamic State (IS) insurgents.

In information obtained by BasNews, the PKK’s warning is related to the fact that the US has warned the Kurdistan Regional Government and the PKK itself that the PKK must not stay on Mount Sinjar. Military and political experts believe that this request has been made by the US as long-range rockets could target countries as far away as Israel from the mountain.

The experts say that the US does not want control of the mountain to fall into the wrong hands, especially the militant group the KCK [another military ally of PKK]. Under the leadership of Cemil Bayik, the Executive Council Co-chair of the KCK, the group is supported by Iran, making it a threat to US allies, particularly Israel. Saddam Hussein launched many long-range rockets at the capital city of Israel in the first Gulf War.

The Commander of Peshmerga forces on the mountain, Qasim Shasho, told BasNews, “There are no IS militants on the mountain, only PKK fighters, Peshmerga forces and Yazidi youths. Yazidis outnumber all of these forces together.’

“The US knows that there are no IS insurgents on Mount Sinjar, and they won’t shell forces that fight IS militants. However, this is the Kurdistan Region and militants on the mountain must be under our command,’ said Shasho. He said that the Yazidkhan forces report to the General Commander of the Kurdistan Region Massoud Barzani, from whom they get both support and orders. BasNews sources revealed that the PKK has attempted to use the situation in Sinjar town as way to establish ‘Sinjar Canton’ and place it under their control, in addition to the three cantons of Syrian Kurdistan which are governed by the PYD (a wing of the PKK). This is a major cause for concern for the US, especially after a US military delegation discovered that the PKK demanded Shasho, as commander of the Peshmerga forces on the mountain, to come under their command, an order he rejected out of hand.

’We will not take orders from the PKK, or any other militants that come from outside of the Kurdistan Region,’ said Shasho. Member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party – Syria (KDP-S) Leadership Council, Nouri Brimo, told BasNews that the PKK and YPG arrived in the Kurdistan Region seeking to establish Sinjar Canton. Remaining on the mountain indicates how politically and militarily important it is to the PKK, which can use it to apply pressure on the Kurdistan Region and the US.  ’They can establish missile launchers and even missile defense systems, which would  be a huge threat to US allies. The US will never allow the PKK to stay on the mountain,’ said Brimo.