Al Qosh // Decked out in his US army-issued fatigues and a lip stud shining from his mouth, the young American fighter cuts an unusual figure in the northern Iraqi town of Al Qosh.
He served in the US army in Baghdad in 2006-2007 and has now returned to fight ISIL with Dwekh Nawsha, a Christian militia whose name is an Assyrian-language phrase conveying self-sacrifice.
The 28-year-old, who goes by the pseudonym Brett, has become the figurehead of an emerging movement of foreigners coming to Iraq to support Christian groups.
Bearing a tattoo of a machine-gun on his left arm and another of Jesus in a crown of thorns on his right, Brett jokingly refers to himself as a “crusader”.
ISIL never captured Al Qosh — but it came close enough for its mostly Christian population to flee to the neighbouring autonomous region of Kurdistan, together with tens of thousands from Mosul and the Nineveh plains.
“One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter,” Brett says, speaking from a Dwekh Nawsha base in the Kurdish city of Dohuk.
“But here we’re actually fighting for the freedom of the people here to be able live peaceably, to be able to live without persecution, to keep the church bells ringing.”
The mass exodus that took place in mid-2014 has put the continued existence of one of world’s oldest Christian communities into question.
With Kurdish peshmerga fighters now clawing back land around Mosul, some Christians are keen to take up arms for their survival and Dwekh Nwasha is only one of several recently formed groups.
Also acting as a recruiter, Brett says he wants to establish a “foreign fighters’ battalion”.
In his first week in charge, he brought in five volunteers from the United States, Britain and Canada, all of whom he says have military or contracting experience.
The foreign contingent is tiny compared to the thousands of foreigners who have joined ISIL, but interest is growing and Brett says he has 20 more volunteers already lined up to join.
Brett’s first recruit was Louis Park, a mild-mannered Texan who retired from the Marines in December.
“I did not adjust well at peace time,” he said with dipping tobacco tucked in his lip. “I wanted to get back out here.”
After serving in Afghanistan, Mr Park says he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder “and some other things” that barred him from combat deployments.
As early as October 2014, he began saving money to join the fight against ISIL.
Mr Park says he travelled to Iraq to continue defending his country, even though Dwekh Nawsha — with barely a few hundred fighters in its ranks — sees little front line action.
The growing contingent of foreign recruits have a variety of reasons for joining Dwekh Nawsha.
Andrew, an older man from Ontario, came because he heard about “slaughterhouses” where ISIL allegedly cuts people up for organ trafficking.
There is no evidence that such places exist but the rumour has been widely circulated by evangelical and anti-Islam organisations.
A video showing the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians by ISIL in Libya released on Sunday and entitled “A message signed with blood to the nation of the cross” sparked a fresh surge of calls on social media for tougher Western action.
One seven-year US army veteran called Scott says he was planning to join the Syria-based Kurdish “Popular Protection Units” (YPG) until he found out they were “a bunch of damn Reds”.
Other foreigners in Dwekh Nawsha say they were turned off by what they see as the socialist streak in the YPG, an affiliate of Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) whose months-long battle against ISIL in Kobani attracted many volunteers.
Alan Duncan, a prominent British foreign fighter and veteran of the Royal Irish Regiment, recently left the YPG for similar reasons.
He said that an exodus of foreign fighters from the YPG has begun, naming several well-known volunteers currently fighting for the group he says plan to leave in the coming days.
Jordan Matson, a former US soldier who has become the poster boy of YPG foreign fighters, argued that some volunteers may have lost their bottle when confronted with the intensity of the fighting in Kobani.
“Most of the internet cowboys have come to realise this isn’t a normal deployment,” he said. “So they lose the stomach to come or stay.”
* Agence France-Presse
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Price: From Dh250,000 (estimated)
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
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In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
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Three tips from La Perle's performers
1 The kind of water athletes drink is important. Gwilym Hooson, a 28-year-old British performer who is currently recovering from knee surgery, found that out when the company was still in Studio City, training for 12 hours a day. “The physio team was like: ‘Why is everyone getting cramps?’ And then they realised we had to add salt and sugar to the water,” he says.
2 A little chocolate is a good thing. “It’s emergency energy,” says Craig Paul Smith, La Perle’s head coach and former Cirque du Soleil performer, gesturing to an almost-empty open box of mini chocolate bars on his desk backstage.
3 Take chances, says Young, who has worked all over the world, including most recently at Dragone’s show in China. “Every time we go out of our comfort zone, we learn a lot about ourselves,” she says.
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Diriyah%20project%20at%20a%20glance
%3Cp%3E-%20Diriyah%E2%80%99s%201.9km%20King%20Salman%20Boulevard%2C%20a%20Parisian%20Champs-Elysees-inspired%20avenue%2C%20is%20scheduled%20for%20completion%20in%202028%3Cbr%3E-%20The%20Royal%20Diriyah%20Opera%20House%20is%20expected%20to%20be%20completed%20in%20four%20years%3Cbr%3E-%20Diriyah%E2%80%99s%20first%20of%2042%20hotels%2C%20the%20Bab%20Samhan%20hotel%2C%20will%20open%20in%20the%20first%20quarter%20of%202024%3Cbr%3E-%20On%20completion%20in%202030%2C%20the%20Diriyah%20project%20is%20forecast%20to%20accommodate%20more%20than%20100%2C000%20people%3Cbr%3E-%20The%20%2463.2%20billion%20Diriyah%20project%20will%20contribute%20%247.2%20billion%20to%20the%20kingdom%E2%80%99s%20GDP%3Cbr%3E-%20It%20will%20create%20more%20than%20178%2C000%20jobs%20and%20aims%20to%20attract%20more%20than%2050%20million%20visits%20a%20year%3Cbr%3E-%20About%202%2C000%20people%20work%20for%20the%20Diriyah%20Company%2C%20with%20more%20than%2086%20per%20cent%20being%20Saudi%20citizens%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
