This article examines the opinion piece “Igniting the Fuse of Community War – 8,” written by Ibrahim Yazidi Shankal and published by Al-Furat News Agency on 23 July 2026. The piece argues that, following the 2007 bombings in Tel Ezir and Siba Sheikh Khader, the Kurdistan Democratic Party used the resulting fear to expand its political and security control over Sinjar, place Ezidi youth within party-controlled structures and weaken relations between neighbouring populations.
The article reflects a wider documented pattern: security was presented as protection, while real authority remained in the hands of the KDP. Ezidi youth were recruited and armed without being given independent command, movement was restricted through trenches and checkpoints, and local recruits were placed at the centre of policies they had not designed. When ISIS attacked on 3 August 2014, the forces that had claimed responsibility for Sinjar’s security withdrew, leaving the Ezidi population defenceless.
Fear Became a Tool of Political Control
The coordinated bombings in Tel Ezir and Siba Sheikh Khader on 14 August 2007 killed and injured large numbers of Ezidis and left the population in a state of profound fear. In the years that followed, the KDP presented itself as the force capable of preventing another attack and used that promise to expand its military, administrative and political influence across Sinjar.
Ezidis were encouraged to believe that their safety depended on the continued presence of the party. Yet the security structure established after the bombings did not give Ezidi society authority over its own defence, because the central decisions remained with KDP commanders while local representatives and dignitaries were expected to follow instructions.
A traumatised population was offered security in exchange for political dependence. Instead of helping Ezidis build independent institutions capable of protecting Sinjar, the KDP used the threat of further violence to make its own presence appear indispensable.
Ezidi Youth Were Armed but Not Given Control
Thousands of young Ezidi men were recruited, armed and placed within KDP-controlled Peshmerga structures in the years following the bombings. Although this was presented as the organisation of local protection, the weapons, salaries, command structures and security orders remained under party control.
The recruits carried arms, but they did not decide how their towns and villages would be defended. Their role was to implement decisions made elsewhere, and their economic dependence on party salaries made it difficult to challenge those decisions or build an independent Ezidi security force.
This arrangement gave the appearance of Ezidi participation without transferring real authority to the Ezidi people. The KDP gained political loyalty and local manpower, while Ezidi society remained unable to determine its own security priorities or hold commanders accountable.
Giving young men weapons does not empower their people when another party controls their salaries, commanders and orders. The Ezidi recruits became employees within a party structure rather than members of a defence force accountable to the population they were supposed to protect.
Sinjar Was Surrounded and Closely Controlled
Trenches were dug around residential complexes established during the Baathist period, and movement was directed through a limited number of entrances controlled by KDP forces. The measures were officially justified as protection against car bombs and further attacks, but their effect was to place entire Ezidi settlements under close political and physical control.
Residents had to pass through checkpoints when travelling to work, farmland, neighbouring villages or the homes of relatives. This restricted everyday movement and separated Sinjar from its surrounding geography while allowing the party to regulate who entered and left the area.
A security system intended to protect civilians should strengthen their freedom and ability to defend themselves. Instead, Ezidis were confined inside a structure they did not command and became increasingly dependent on the same political party that controlled access, employment and security decisions.
The description of Sinjar as an open prison is therefore not simply rhetorical. A population surrounded by trenches, dependent on party salaries and excluded from meaningful decision-making was being controlled as much as it was being protected.
KDP Policies Damaged Relations With Arab Neighbours
The post-2007 security system also affected relations between Ezidis and neighbouring Arab populations. Ezidi recruits serving within KDP-controlled forces were stationed at checkpoints and required to enforce searches, delays and restrictions determined by party commanders.
These young men did not create the policy or control the wider security strategy. They were carrying out instructions inside a system directed by the KDP, but because they were the people visibly present at the checkpoints, frustration over the restrictions was often directed toward them and, by extension, toward the wider Ezidi population.
This placed Ezidis in an unfair and dangerous position. The party made the decisions, while local recruits became associated with their implementation and absorbed the resentment created by those policies.
Relations between Ezidis and Arabs in the surrounding areas had existed for generations through trade, agriculture, employment and personal contact. The increasingly restrictive security structure weakened those ties and encouraged suspicion at a time when cooperation between local populations should have been strengthened.
The KDP benefited from this division because greater fear and isolation reinforced its claim that Ezidis had no reliable protector except the party. The more neighbouring populations distrusted one another, the easier it became to maintain political dependence through the promise of security.
The KDP Created Dependence but Failed to Protect Sinjar
An empowered people controls its own security, participates in decisions concerning its territory and builds institutions accountable to its population. The KDP allowed none of this in Sinjar, even while presenting itself as the defender of the Ezidi people.
It armed Ezidi youth without giving them command, employed them without giving them independence and surrounded Ezidi settlements while calling the arrangement protection. The result was not an autonomous security system but a population tied to party structures that controlled movement, salaries and decision-making.
When ISIS attacked on 3 August 2014, the protection promised for years disappeared. KDP Peshmerga forces withdrew without properly warning or evacuating the Ezidi population, leaving civilians defenceless against ISIS and its local collaborators.
The withdrawal came after years in which the party had prevented Ezidis from developing an independent defence structure and had concentrated security authority in its own hands. Once those forces left, the Ezidi population was left without either the protection promised by the KDP or an autonomous force capable of replacing it.
The responsibility of the ISIS perpetrators and local collaborators remains complete. Political manipulation, checkpoint restrictions and damaged relations cannot justify participation in genocide, but the KDP must still answer for the system it created before the attack and for abandoning the population when that system collapsed.
Control Was the Reality and Abandonment Was the Result
The opinion piece by Ibrahim Yazidi Shankal offers an important explanation of how fear, political control and damaged relations developed after the 2007 bombings. The genocide cannot be understood only by examining the morning ISIS entered Sinjar, because the political and security conditions created during the preceding years determined how exposed the Ezidi population had become.
The KDP controlled checkpoints, recruited local youth, restricted movement and presented itself as the recognised protector of Sinjar. It cannot claim the political benefits of that authority while denying responsibility for the weakness of the system it imposed and the consequences of its withdrawal.
The party did not merely fail to stop ISIS. It spent years weakening Ezidi independence, placing Ezidi recruits inside structures they did not control and damaging trust between neighbouring populations, all while demanding loyalty in exchange for promises of protection.
Protection was the promise, but control was the reality. When the decisive moment arrived, abandonment was the result. As a result, the Kurdish parties who are thirsting for Ezidi lands should not play innocent when Ezidis decline them because, at the end of the day, Ezidis have not experienced any difference between the power thirsty Kurds and isis. They are just different sides of the same coin.
