K N Chaudhuri: Kurdistan at War or Peace 2017? A Documentary Film. Mosul Front Line 2017

Kurdistan: at War or Peace 2017? Daily life and Mosul Front Line. Action at Teleskuf and Batnay: the death of US Navy Seal Charlie Keating. A film vignette, the images, kinematic and stills, describe together with the narration, a historian's perception of the current situation in Kurdistan as of February 2017. The savage war that is in progress throughout the wider area and in particular on the Mosul Front Line has spared people's daily lives in most of Kurdistan which enjoys a high and prosperous standard, in spite of strains on public finance due to the strains of war. I received an invitation from the Peshmerga Military Command on the Batnay Teleskuf Sector of Mosul Operations to visit the Front Line and see for myself Peshmerga units in action. A celebration week-end Friday lunch with the General and his senior officers was the highlight of the visit. In addition, I was shown around Teleskuf and Batnay, and also the Peshmerga defensive emplacement, the "fortress" or berm, in the No Man's Land around Mosul, and given a detailed account of the action that took place at these places respectively on 3 May and 20 October 2016. The Teleskuf action gained world wide news coverage because it was here that on 3 May 2016 US Navy Seal Charlie Keating was killed by enemy small arms fire. The film takes the viewer through a detailed topographical tour of Da'esh attack in the early hours of the morning on 3 May and the subsequent counter attack by Peshmerga and US Special Force and US QRF. This is followed up by a similar tour of the action at Batnay on 20 October when General Mansour Barzani, son of President Masoud Barzani, joined the Peshmerga forces. The viewer is able to see the devastating impact of air strikes by B-18 Hornet and F-16 fighter jets and also view some live footage of battle action and a young wounded Isis fighter being taken prisoner and given first aid. The footage, recorded on a helmet camera, shows some 20 Isis fighters caught in a fierce fire fight with Peshmerga: some of the cornered Isis fighters blew themselves up. The film discusses the relevance of Clausewitz doctrine on War as adopted by Da'esh and the wider geopolitics of a deadly conflict.