Sectarian impasse in Iraq
On 31 August, the Iraqi army, Kurdish troops (peshmerga), and the “peace brigades” linked to Iraqi Shia-Islamist leader Moqtada al-Sadr reached the town of Amerli in northern Iraq and lifted its siege by the “Islamic State” movement which has taken control of a big swathe of northern Iraq and of Syria. Amerli’s inhabitants are mainly of the Turkmen minority, but many had already fled the siege. It is reported that the Turkmen themselves had dug mass graves because they planned to kill their families and themselves if they lost their fight to defend the town. Otherwise they feared forced...