Mala Qara Village, Iraq – A pair of armoured vehicles parked in a corner of the Peshmerga headquarters in northern Iraq form a stark reminder of the threat the region is facing by ISIL.

“They were full of explosives when we captured them,” Kurdish Peshmerga commander General Sirwan Barzani said, as he discussed the battle his forces fought two years ago against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS). 

ISIL fighters came within 25km of Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, before the Peshmerga got the upper hand in continuous battles, retaking control of towns in the region from 2014 to 2016.

While ISIL has since been driven from Mosul and other towns and villages in northern Iraq, they are still active in the area, Barzani said.

The current Kurdish-run Peshmerga front line is situated along the high ridge running north from the town of Makhmur, about 65km southwest of Erbil to Gwer, behind which ISIL fighters are hiding in the caves and on cliff faces on steep hills, Barzani said; it is terrain that makes it difficult to dislodge them.

A military operation last year to rid the area of ISIL was only partially successful, Barzani said, blaming constraints placed on his battle plan by Iraqi officials and US and coalition forces.

Barzani says there are other pockets of ISIL fighters to the south and west of the Peshmerga front lines, but the areas are controlled by Iraqi forces, so there is nothing he can do about them.

There is an uneasy cooperation between the Iraqi military and the Kurdish-run Peshmerga. They worked together against their common enemy, ISIL, but relations soured in October 2017 when Iraqi forces backed by Iranian militias retook control of oil-rich Kirkuk and other contested areas that Kurdish forces had held since 2014.

The Iraqi offensive came in the wake of a Kurdish referendum on independence that the Iraqi leadership in Baghdad and much of the rest of world dismissed as illegal. 

The US, a long-time ally of the Iraqi Kurds, did nothing to stop the Iraqi military advance.

With the announcement by the Trump administration about the US withdrawal from Syria, Barzani said he is concerned the US will abandon the Syrian Kurds, who have been essential in the fight against ISIL. 

US withdrawal

Major General Jabbar Yawar, secretary-general of the Peshmerga ministry, said, “It is very important that the US stays in both Iraq and Syria and keep playing the leadership role in the global coalition against ISIS.”

Yawar denied Iraq’s Peshmerga work with their Syrian counterparts, often called the Rojava Peshmerga named after the Kurdish region in eastern Syria. 

“As Peshmerga forces, we have no connection with Rojava or any interference whatsoever. For us, it is the matter of another country, Syria, and we have no hand in any of it,” Yawar said. 

He said Iraqi Peshmerga have fought inside Syria only once. 

“During the ISIS attack on Kobane we were formally asked to send reinforcements, which we did with the coordination from the coalition forces and the Peshmerga stayed there for a year,” Yawar told Al Jazeera. 

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has proposed a so-called “safe zone” inside Syria running east of the Euphrates river to the border.

Barzani said that will force Syria’s Kurdish fighters, who so far have been allied with the United States, to make a deal with Damascus. 

“The fighters they will go to [Syrian President Bashar al-Assad], they will have an agreement with him, of course, it’s very clear,” Barzani said.

The US announcement, which came as a surprise to its allies, could undermine any leverage US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) might have had with Assad.

There are no details yet of who will be in charge of the safe zone, but Erdogan has said he will establish it himself if he does not get international support. 

‘Fighting for land’

Barzani said Erdogan will use the buffer zone drive Kurds out, as they did in the Syrian Kurdish town of Afrin last March.

“If the fighters belonging to Turkey and the terrorists belonging to Erdogan will be there, they will be fighting for the land. It’s not a safe zone, it’s a warzone,” Barzani said.

Privately, Kurdish politicians said they are concerned any Turkish advance in Syria could cause another influx of refugees into Iraq’s Kurdish region, which currently hosts about 250,000. They note Erdogan’s “security zone” includes all Kurdish areas east of the Euphrates and a US pullout would be considered a defeat in the eyes of Syrian allies Russia and Iran.

The Peshmerga say the most convincing argument for the US to stay is the continued presence of ISIL in the region.

“For us, the Peshmerga, ISIS is not finished. They still carry out terrorist acts especially in areas called disputed territories in Kirkuk, Diyala, Salahaddin, Makhmour and around Mosul. They carry out daily attacks and they have even grown in strength,” Yawar said.

“Even Syrian Democratic Forces SDF say that the US forces should stay. ISIS is still a global terrorist organisation. It may have lost the land and the caliphate, but it still exists and it is dangerous.”

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With three Premier League titles, three League Cups, an FA Cup and two Community shields, there is little you can teach Vincent Kompany about football at the highest level.

And with eight UK number one singles, 11 UK number one albums and more than 75 million album sales worldwide, there is not much Oasis star Noel Gallagher does not know about music.

But can we learn anything from them?

In a special interview with Football Focus to mark his testimonial year and 10th season at City, Vincent met Noel to discuss football, Oasis and a decade of drama at Etihad Stadium.

• Watch the full conversation here

Here are five things we found out:

1. Man City gave up on the title in 2012

Manchester City’s title success in 2012 culminated in one of the most memorable moments in Premier League history – but there was a point when Kompany had lost all hope of ending the club’s 44-year wait to be English champions.

A loss to Arsenal in April left City eight points behind leaders Manchester United with just six games left.

“We gave up when we lost to Arsenal away,” said Kompany. “The league was done.

“But we had this kind of team mentality. We were fighting in training all the time because of the characters we had, which brought the best out of us for the last six games.”

City, of course, famously clawed their way back into the title race with five straight wins to lead the table going into the final game of the season.

That set the scene for one of the most dramatic season finales the Premier League has produced, Sergio Aguero’s stoppage-time winner against QPR snatching the title away from United and sending the sky blue hordes into delirium.

“That’s the moment that defined so much for this club,” added Kompany. “A lot of the players coming through today and being in this environment have to thank that squad and Kun [Aguero] in particular for that goal.”

2. Man City are bigger than Oasis

Back in the summer of 1997, when Brit Pop was at its peak, Oasis released their third studio album Be Here Now, shifting more than 424,000 copies on the first day of release, becoming the fastest-selling album in British chart history.

Meanwhile, at Maine Road, Frank Clark’s Manchester City were about to kick-off the 1997-98 season in Division One. The campaign would end in disaster, with the club relegated to the third tier of English football for the first time in their history.

Those days seem a long way away now, with City firmly among the world’s elite and attracting supporters from all over the world.

But does that mean they are now bigger than Oasis?

“I think that’s fair to say,” said Gallagher. “I was in Osaka, Japan last year for the first game of the season and we just ambled into a bar and it was full of Japanese Man City fans. We were like ‘wow, this is the start of something’.

“It shows that if you get the right people involved in a football club and you’re measured in what you do, you can make great things happen.”

3. Watching City is more nerve-wracking than playing in front of thousands

From Glastonbury to Wembley via Knebworth and Madison Square Garden, Gallagher has played at some of the biggest venues in the world in front of millions of fans. But that is nothing when compared to watching his beloved City.

“Watching City is more nerve-wracking,” said Gallagher. “When I’m doing my thing you’re in control. When you’re watching City in the big, tense games they are out of your control and anything can happen.”

4. Noel would rather be a footballer than a rock star

Both perform week in, week out, in front of millions of adoring fans. Both travel the world playing in iconic venues and enjoy a luxurious lifestyle most of us could only dream of.

But given the choice what would you rather be – footballer or rock star?

“I’ve never met a musician, who is any good, who didn’t want to be a footballer,” said Gallagher.

“Vinny represents an entire City and an entire club. And if he makes a mistake then people’s weekends are ruined. For music it’s different, you’re part of someone’s night out, but you’re still performing in front of big crowds.”

But would Noel rather be a footballer?

“They’d probably earn more money than me now so I’d say yes!”

5. Kompany is a Mancunian… nearly

Kompany marked a decade at City last summer. His arrival from Anderlecht coincided with the takeover of the club by Sheikh Mansour; a defining moment in English football that transformed City into one of the world’s most powerful football clubs.

To mark his testimonial year, Kompany hosted a dinner in a central Manchester hotel earlier this week. As well as celebrating his decade in sky blue, the event raised money for Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham’s ‘A Bed Every Night’ initiative, which is seeking to tackle the issue of homelessness in the city.

Kompany says it is a cause close to his heart and a chance to give something back to a city that has embraced him as one of their own.

“I’m an adopted Mancunian,” said the 32-year-old. “This city has grown on me. I have a wife from Manchester and have three kids who think they are more Mancuniuan than anything else, which is a problem I need to address!

“It’s suited me from day one and the club, where it is today, it’s unbelievable to have been part of this journey.

“I feel that this place is able to do incredible things when they pull together and I want to raise as many funds as I can to tackle the issue of homelessness in Manchester.”

• Hear more from when Noel met Vincent on Football Focus on BBC One this Saturday at 12:00 GMT or watch the conversation here.

A camp where babies are dying despite it being in a zone in Syria controlled by the United States military finally received its first aid delivery in three months.

The United Nations and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent reached the Rukban camp in southeast Syria with 118 trucks packed with food supplies, basic medicines, education items and children’s recreational kits.

Aid workers arrived on Wednesday night after tortuous negotiations with the Syrian government, and are expected to spend a week distributing material to the camp’s 40,000 residents.

Trapped between Jordan on one side and US-backed rebel forces on the other, Rukban received aid just twice in the last year, in January and November.

Sajjad Malik, UN resident and humanitarian coordinator, said: “This large-scale delivery of essential humanitarian supplies to the extremely vulnerable in Rukban happened not a moment too soon.”

About 80 percent of the inhabitants of Rukban are women and children. At least eight children died this winter in freezing temperatures and because of a lack of adequate medical care.

Jordan, the Syrian government, and the US with its local allies have played a part in hindering aid supplies. Jordan shut its borders in 2016 and stopped the aid flow, while the Syrian government has used the squeeze as a strategy to coerce people to give in to Bashar al-Assad’s rule.

UN-SARC cooperation

The Syrian government allowed the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC)  to join forces with the UN to supply the aid.

In a statement SARC said vaccines would also be given to the children. “A vaccination campaign will be launched, under the supervision of a medical team, to immunise children against measles, polio, tuberculosis and hepatitis,” it said.

Imad Ghali, an activist at the camp, described the moment the aid arrived. “I saw faces full of happiness, a scene that I’ve never seen in a long time,” he said. “It was like dead people returning to life.”

Ghali said people gathered to collect the aid despite the rain and the storm in the camp on Thursday.

He said the trucks carried more than 8,000 food baskets containing rice, hummus, lentils, oil, sugar and wheat.

Ghali said the camp was still lacking doctors and medical facilities, including specialised equipment.

“We have almost 200 people who need specialised urgent care and treatment, like pregnant women who need caesarean operations,” he said. There was nothing to help those suffering from conflict injuries, he added. 

Nejm, one of the displaced Syrians in the camp, said while the aid would provide much-needed relief, it was too late for the families who had lost their babies.

“What can they do with it now?” he said. “It is very, very late for them.”

Nejm, a father of two, said even though the supplies were in the camp, he had to wait for his turn. 

The first to receive aid were the people of the Bani Khaled tribe in the camp. The displaced from the historic city of Palymra were next in line and then those from Qaryateen and other areas. 

Nejm said there was corruption in the camp and urged aid workers to pay attention to the people who distributed aid.

“I am from Palymra, so our head will go and collect it, but sometimes wrong people claim aid for people and later sell it in the camp,” he said. 

He also said help should be sent every month for as long as the people were still in the camp. He begged for a lasting solution to his plight for the sake of his son and other children.

“My son was forced to leave school four years ago. He is just sitting around doing nothing. He has lost his future,” Nejm said. “We want to go to the north on border with Turkey, we want to leave.”

‘Safe exit route needed’

Abdulfattah Basleh, a teacher in the camp, also demanded a safe exit route, saying he was desperate to stop living off aid.

“We lose children, our women’s health deteriorates and after we pay this price, the UN starts to mourn us and delivers aid as if they are the heroic saviour of the refugees,” he said.

“I ask for the opening of safe corridors under international guarantees to let people go to the north or to regime-held areas.”

Other than distributing aid, the UN and SARC will also be conducting “an intention survey” to assess how many residents in the camp wish to leave voluntarily and to where.

Sajid Mallik of the UN admitted the delivery of assistance could only be a temporary measure.

“A long-term, safe, voluntary and dignified solution for tens of thousands of people, many of whom have been staying at the Rukban settlement for more than two years in desperate conditions, is urgently needed.”

Some people on the ground expressed a will to go to areas controlled by the government and others such as Nejm prefered the last rebel-held enclave on the border with Turkey.

Nejm said he hopes if he can get to northern Syria, he may be able to take his family to another country, somewhere he would feel safe.

“If we go back to the regime, they might arrest us or ask us to join the army,” he said, voicing a fear of many.