Iraq has been at the top of the list of Middle Eastern nations torn apart by violent wars for many years. In 2014, the conflict engulfed Iraqi Kurdistan, one of the region's more stable areas. The unremitting battles and conflicts in Iraq made headlines on the first day of 2014, when the police of the Shiite Maliki government organized a bloody raid to the home of the Sunnite MP Ahmed al-Alwani. Upon the arrest of Al-Alwani, known for his support to anti-government protests, and the ensuing clashes between security forces and Sunni protesters, the tension in the province of Anbar rapidly spilled over to other areas. The Sunnis claim that the Shiite government treats them as second-class citizens, while the Maliki government accuses the tribes in Anbar of supporting Al-Qaeda.
Another hot topic of debate, from the first to the last days of 2014, was the budget crisis. It was a major source of conflict between the central government and the Kurdistan Regional Government, which attempted to export regional oil to the world markets. International news agencies reported that the regional government started to make crude oil available to international markets by sending the oil through Turkey.
Throughout the year, the number of ISIL's much-discussed attacks increased. In Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province in western Iraq, security forces intervened against anti-government protesters, playing into ISIL's hands. Subsequently, armed groups took control of five police stations in the town, seized police guns, and then set police stations and armored vehicles on fire. In the first days of 2014, Fallujah also fell to ISIL, which had yet to cut its link with Al-Qaeda.
ISIL was also starting to expand its footprint in Syria. In clashes between ISIL and other opposition groups in the cities of Aleppo and Idlib, numerous militants were killed and wounded; and the militants were told to surrender in 24 hours. However, ISIL simply went on attacking every group to reinforce its dominance. From the beginning of the year, ISIL attacks increased in the Kurdish region. In the city of Kirkuk, officially outside of the Kurdistan region, a suicide attack with a bombed vehicle killed seven people.
Tension between the central and regional governments
Meanwhile, the USA stepped in to resolve the oil crisis between the central and regional governments. Vice President Joe Biden talked to Kurdistan Regional Government's President Masoud Barzani on the phone. The USA suggested that Barzani had to reach a consensus with Iraq and Turkey about the problems related to the transport of oil from the Kurdish region. Maliki opposed oil transports from the Kurdistan region to Turkey and stated that KRG will be denied its share from the federal budget in case it continues to transport oil via Turkey. The tension between Erbil and Baghdad about oil exports brought relations to the brink of collapse. The KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani issued warnings about civil servant salaries not being paid.
The United Nations also took action in order to resolve the problems in Iraq. The Secretary General Ban Ki Moon traveled to Baghdad to meet the then-Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other officials, and discussed the Syrian crisis, violence in Iraq and the invasion of Fallujah and Ramadi by ISIL. ISIL, on the other hand, was rapidly expanding its clout by capitalizing on the weakness of the Iraqi government that pursued anti-Sunni policies. Countless people had to flee from Fallujah and Anbar following the ISIL invasion.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees announced that 65,000 people abandoned Anbar province in two weeks; the number of those fleeing the area since December 2013 had already reached 140,000. The fleeing civilians took refuge in Baghdad and Iraqi Kurdistan.
While the number of refugees soared, the clashes between ISIL and the Iraqi army, which had started in January in Fallujah and Ramadi, spread to the north of Baghdad and towns around Kirkuk.
As violence escalated in Iraq, the media issued numerous reports that the KRG was getting ready to declare independence. Indeed it is still argued that Masoud Barzani is willing to declare the independence of Kurdistan. The Kurdistan parliament passed the Referendum Law and announced that it would put independence and the annexation of the controversial cities of Kirkuk, Xanekin, Mandali and Shengal by Kurdistan to popular vote. Masoud Barzani's words about independence triggered a prompt American response stating that US policy is still centered on the integrity of Iraq.
Another problem in 2014 for the Iraqi Kurdistan was the failure of attempts to establish a new government. After the Kurdish elections of September 21, 2013, it took political parties eight months to start negotiations about establishing a broad-based coalition government. The two winners of the elections, Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Gorran Movement announced that they reached an agreement, including a clause on which party the president of parliament would hail from. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and two Islamic parties joined the agreement, and a government was formed nine months after the elections with the participation of all parties. The cabinet consisted of five parties and Turkoman and Assyrian minorities.
In the run-up to the April 30 national elections in Iraq, attacks became more and more frequent. The challenges facing the central government were the tense relations with the Kurdistan region and attacks organized by ISIL and other groups. The Maliki government strived to eliminate ISIL and other Sunni groups which increased their power in the Sunni regions. The position of the once powerful Prime Minister of the Shiites was no longer so comfortable in the run-up to the April 30 elections. Sunni opposition groups as well as certain Shiite groups that had previously supported Maliki were waging fierce campaigns against him.
The April 30 elections were critical for the Kurds, too. For the first time, Kurds ran in the Iraqi parliament elections on separate lists. At the same time with these first general elections organized after the withdrawal of US troops, local elections were held in Iraqi Kurdistan for the first time in ten years. Kurds focused not on general but local elections, especially the elections in Kirkuk.
Despite the fierce opposition, Nuri Maliki's party won the elections under the banner of “a state of law.” The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, under the leadership of Ammar al-Hakim, came second, the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and Usama al-Nujayfi, who leads the Muttahidoon alliance, finished third. Ex-Prime Ministers Ayad Allawi and Ibrahim al-Jaafari, and deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq's al-Arabiya also entered the parliament. Kurds, on the other hand, maintained their force in the central parliament despite running on separate lists.
Increasing its power and reach, ISIL started to turn towards Iraqi Kurdistan. ISIL organized its first attack in May to the Yazidi people, killing around ten Yazidis and wounding many of them near the town of Shekhan. ISIL organized a suicide attack on the PUK bureau in Celawla, Xanekin, killing 18 people and wounding numerous peshmerga and civilians.
ISIL stepped up its attacks across Iraq. After Samara, Anbar and Fallujah, it shifted its focus to Salahaddin and Mosul. Yazidi Kurds and Shabeks living in Mosul started to flee towards Iraqi Kurdistan, and the Arbil government went on alarm. Mosul, with a population of three and a half million, came under complete ISIL control on June 10.
Maliki made appeals to the United Nations, the European Union and the Arab Union. Iraqi army troops abandoned their positions, stating that they could not hold against ISIL attacks. Civilians started to flee the city. Most of them took refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan, especially Erbil and Duhok. Peshmerga forces took positions around the town, while YPG, which dominates the Rojava region of Syria, announced that it could send troops to Iraqi Kurdistan if need be.
Turkey's Mosul consulate was raided by ISIL just hours after the Turkish PM Ahmet Davutoğlu announced that the situation was calm. Forty-nine consulate personnel were taken hostage, including Turkish Consul General to Mosul Öztürk Yılmaz, who had previously served as foreign relations advisor to Erdoğan. ISIL issued a message stating that “The Turks have not been taken hostage, they have been taken to a safe location and will remain there until the inquisition procedure is complete.” Later on, the Islamist militants took control of Tikrit, only 150 km from Baghdad, and a crucial oil refinery in Baiji.
After Mosul, the Iraqi army abandoned Kirkuk as well. The control of the city passed to the Kurdish peshmerga forces. According to Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution, a referendum had to be organized to determine the future of the city. The Maliki government had repeatedly postponed the referendum. When the control of the city passed de facto to Kurds, the peshmerga forces and HPG guerillas prevented ISIL from entering Kirkuk.
The relation between ISIL and the Baas Party
After the invasion of Mosul, ISIL had declared the establishment of the Islamic State and designated its leader al-Baghdadi as caliph. ISIL appointed a former Baas general as the governor of the first city of the Islamic State. It was claimed that ISIL was trying to create a security corridor to bring Raghad Hussein, Saddam Hussein's daughter in exile in Jordan, back to Iraq. Raghad Hussein told the newspaper al-Arabi, “I am pleased to see my uncle Izzat Al-Douri liberate Iraq, together with my father's soldiers.” Another statement came from Iraq’s ex-Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, in exile in Turkey, who hailed ISIL's invasion of Mosul as a revolution on Twitter.
In his first statement on ISIL's progress in Iraq, US President Obama said that they were considering all options to assist the Iraqi government.
Right after the then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan drew attention to Tal Afar, this largely Turkoman district fell to ISIL. Thousands of Turkomans fled to Shengal, which was controlled by the Kurds.
The President of the Iraqi Kurdistan, Masoud Barzani, indicated that Nouri al-Maliki was responsible for the developments in Iraq and made an appeal to United Nations. He informed the UN that they would start work on the referendum and asked for help. At the same time, Barzani issued a call to the Kurdistan Regional Parliament and instructed them to “make the necessary preparations for the referendum.”
When the prospect of a referendum appeared, ISIL attacked the Kurdistan region even harder. It attacked with heavy weapons the Tilbenet village of Shengal, largely populated by the Yazidi. Eleven Shabek Kurdish settlements with an overall population of 400,000 fell to ISIL control.
Meanwhile, the tension between Erbil and Baghdad mounted further and the KRG decided not to participate in the cabinet meetings of the Baghdad government. The presidential elections, previously scheduled for July 23, were postponed upon the demand of the Kurdistan Alliance List. After an extraordinary meeting, the Kurdistan Alliance List nominated Fuad Masum as their candidate for Iraqi president. Aside from Fuad Masum, six candidates from Sunni and Shiite parties took part in the elections. Fuad Masum received 211 votes in the second tour and became Iraq's second Kurdish president after Jalal Talabani.
ISIL's next target was Shengal, which had a large Yazidi population. Tragically, ISIL ran over Shengal in a short period of time. Meanwhile, Reuters news agency reported that ISIL invaded the oil refinery near Zumar after clashes with the peshmerga. ISIL also took control of Iraq's largest dam; according to Reuters, ISIL had faced no resistance from peshmerga fighters while doing so.
ISIL massacred people in the areas it conquered in Iraq and moved as close as 40 km to Erbil, the capital of KRG. The peshmerga forces, which had to retreat before ISIL attacks on Zumar and Shengal, waged a counter-attack this time.
In this period, thousands of people fleeing to the mountains from ISIL had to struggle against famine. ISIL enslaved and killed thousands of Yazidi women, children and elderly, while tens of thousands of them were on mountain roads.
United Nations Security Council called on the international community to help the Iraqi people and government in their fight against ISIL.
Iraqi President Fuad Masum gave the mandate to form the new government not to Maliki, but to Haider al-Abadi from the same party. Maliki heavily criticized this choice and the US support for this decision. However, the Kurdish governments had decided to rejoin the central government. The parliament was able to approve the Shiite PM Haider al-Abadi's cabinet only minutes before the legal deadline, and the new government took office.
After the invasion of Shengal, ISIL attacked Kobanê on September 15. Four days after the attack started, Masoud Barzani called on the international community to defend Kobanê. About one month later, the Iraqi Kurdistan parliament convened to discuss Kobanê upon the demand of Masoud Barzani, and decided to send peshmerga forces to the besieged town.
The peshmerga forces who set off for Kobanê on October 29 reached Urfa by plane and then reached Mürşitpınar border gate. The group travelled on land, crossing the border in Habur and then arrived in Suruç. This helped alleviate the rising tension between the Rojava government and KRG, and drew Kurds closer.
Towards the end of 2014, the ice between KRG and the central Iraqi government also started to melt. At the end of a series of meetings held in Baghdad in December, the two sides declared that they had reached an agreement on many issues including the budget crisis and oil exports.
ISIL had occupied Shengal on August 3. The peshmerga forces and the PKK’s miltary wing HPG, the Rojava People's Defense Units YPG and YPJ, and the Shengal Resistance Forces YBŞ started an operation in mid-December to break the siege of Shengal. After the onset of the operation, Masud Barzani held a press conference on Shengal Mountain, expressing his belief that the Kurdish people would eventually win this protracted war.
In a way, the year 2014 was an experiment for the erroneous policies implemented in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan. These observations are important to understand which policies led to the ascent of ISIL in the Middle East.