Iraq's Sunni, Shiite Turkmens fall out over IS
The six-week Islamic State siege of the Shiite Turkmen town of Amerli has exposed the little-discussed rift between Iraqi Shiites and Sunni Turkmens.
Each and every move in the Islamic State’s (IS) campaign in Iraq — before and after it proclaimed a caliphate and changed its name — has rendered the Turkmen issue a lost cause for Turkey. Since June, the Kurdish peshmerga forces have assumed the defense of Tuz Khormato, a Turkmen-majority town south of Kirkuk, while Tal Afar, to the west of Mosul, has fallen without a fight, with local Turkmens fleeing to Sinjar, only to find themselves defenseless again after IS’ subsequent capture of the town.
These developments have traumatized those who once believed that Turkey was the Turkmens' protector. The trauma has deepened further amid reports that Amerli, a town in Salahuddin province south of Tuz Khormato and home to the Bayat tribe, is next in line for an imminent massacre at the hands of IS. According to Turkmen sources, 17,000 to 19,000 people are trapped in the town. The Shiite and Sunni Turkmen villages surrounding Amerli were seized by IS six weeks ago. Since then the jihadists have shelled the town from all sides, condemning its people to death and hunger. The Amerli people have taken up arms to resist the assault, fearful that, even if they surrender, they will face death because of their Shiite identity.
“The Turkmen are in great trouble. They have been left alone against the IS terror, getting support from no one. The United States, too, is helping out only the Kurdish regions,” Turkmen journalist Casim Muharrem said by telephone.
A Turkmen academic, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, “It is sad to see that the concern Turkey, the United States and the United Nations displayed righteously for the Yazidis in Sinjar is denied to the Turkmen.”
