What we now know is that Iran was the first country to send weapons and artillery to stop the extremists advance into Makhmur. But why Iran? And why weren t Iranian Kurds allowed initially to join the fight against the Islamist militants? Why is the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) - which was hiding in the mountains until it joined the fight against the extremists - roaming freely around Iraqi Kurdistan now?

My worst days were when tens of my cellmates were executed at once, and also when I heard that my mother had passed away, he said by mail correspondence with Masih Alinejad, an Iranian journalist living in London. Nazari, who is jailed at the Rajaee Shahr Prison in Karaj and says he has not been outside of prison for nearly 20 years, told Alinejad: "I was at my sister's in Bukan when I was arrested (in 1994) and later sentenced to death... in a stagy and speedy trial without a lawyer." He was just 23 at the time of his arrest.