Operation “The Brotherhood of the Ring”

About 10 km away from the Turkish border and 100 km from Mosul is the historic town of Zakho located, one of the centres of the Chaldean Catholic Church. The CIA delivered the portable barracks made by IKEA and opened a training centre near the town.

Presently, about 800 people speaking Arabic have begun there a special training with the instructors from a PMC (private military company) controlled by the mutual funds company Vanguard.

Sources in the People’s Defence Forces of the Kurdistan Workers Party report that over half of the trainees belong to organizations of the Islamic State and Hamas.

It is utterly obvious that we are talking about not the “retired,” but the active fighters of the IS who were sent to upgrade their qualifications. For recreation and fun, many of them are regularly visiting Mosul controlled by Caliph Ibrahim’s forces – their families are located there.

As far as I can imagine, the situation on the ground is that a person indeed can sneak from Zakho to Mosul and back. Of course, provided that he is at least Lawrence of Arabia. However, hundreds of people who regularly move along this route without fearing to be burnt alive as “American spies” can be no one else but active fighters of the IS or Daish (as the Arabic speakers call them).

The various Kurdish fractions, like the Peshmerga, as well as the People’s Defense Forces of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, tried to send their own fighters to this training, but their requests were denied, “Regretfully, your people don’t meet the selection criteria.”

Since today the Kurds are the only force opposing the IS on the ground, more and more people ask the question “What are these criteria?” Or, rather, who is the enemy these fighters in Zakho are being trained against?

During the whole time this camp exists, one month and a half, the Islamic State ceased all military preparations and combat actions in this region.

The American logistic company who set up this camp has already begun to build another base nearby. According to insider information, the second camp is designed for the Muslims in this region whose mother tongue is English.

As far as I know, the only Muslims in the region whose mother tongue is English are the fighters within the IS of the so-called “international brigades” from the United Kingdom, Canada, and the USA.

One may ask a reasonable question – what language will the extremists from the third camp built by Vanguard/CIA speak? French? German? Or Russian?