Kurds blame outside world for loss of territories to Iraq

Iraqi Kurds grieve the loss of lands they have had to return to Iraq's control and their shattered dream of independence. As they see it, it isn't their politicians who are to blame, but the international community.

"Why did our peshmerga die in the fight against Daesh?" asks Hawre Ali, who stands by while protesters pose for pictures with yellow sad-faced smileys. Outside the United Nations compound in Iraqi Kurdistan's capital Irbil, peace protesters gather. They mourn for the territories the Iraqi army has taken back from the Kurds over the last few days, some of which peshmerga fighters had recaptured from the "Islamic State" terror group, or Daesh, with the loss of Kurdish lives.

"What did we fight for?" Ali wonders. For three years, the peshmerga fought IS — mainly in the so-called "disputed" territories that both the Kurds and Baghdad claim for themselves — with air support from the US-led international coalition against IS. They lost almost 2,000 peshmerga troops in battle, with another 18,000 wounded.
Read on here