Shafaq News- Baghdad

Integrating the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS) and other Yazidi armed formations into Iraq’s official security institutions under a national, non-political framework is essential to achieving lasting stability in Sinjar, Iraqi Member of Parliament Murad Ismael said on Monday.

Ismael said the forces should be incorporated into the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Interior, or placed under another official structure reporting directly to the Office of the Prime Minister as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.

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“Moving the YBS from one unstable security structure to another does not create lasting stability; it merely shifts the problem without resolving it,” he said, arguing that the core issue lies in linking civilian security to political or geopolitical agendas rather than placing it firmly under state authority.

The YBS and the Ezidkhan Protection Forces (Êzîdxanê) were formed after ISIS overran Sinjar in 2014, in attacks that killed an estimated 3,100 to 5,000 Yazidis and led to the abduction of between 6,400 and 10,800 people. The United Nations has described the campaign against the Yazidi community as genocide.

The groups later developed organizational ties with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Some elements were formally incorporated into the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) through exceptional decisions, though only a limited portion operates effectively within the PMF framework. Other units continue to function with significant autonomy or without clear official status.

In recent years, the factions have been targeted by repeated Turkish airstrikes, as Ankara considers them affiliated with the PKK, which Turkiye designates as a terrorist organization. They have also faced accusations of obstructing the implementation of the 2020 Sinjar Agreement between Baghdad and Erbil, which calls for the removal of armed groups from the district and the reorganization of its administrative and security structures.

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Last March, the YBS welcomed the call by jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan to lay down arms and said it was not affiliated with the PKK. The PKK later announced it would dissolve itself and end its more than four-decade armed conflict against the Turkish state in response to Ocalan’s appeal.At the time, informed sources told Shafaq News that the development was part of broader understandings led by Baghdad aimed at ensuring stability in Sinjar and preventing any potential security vacuum, while keeping Yazidis within the official security framework under government supervision.