Five Turkish soldiers killed in attack near Iraq border
Posted: 05-08-2005 , 10:04 GMT
Kurdish fighters killed five Turkish troops in a rocket attack in southeastern Turkey early Friday, the semiofficial Anatolia news agency reported. Turkish soldiersThis attack came just hours after Kurdish rebels freed an abducted Turkish soldier they had held captive for more than three weeks.
The rocket attack targeted a group of soldiers serving in remote Hakkari province, which borders both Iraq and Iran and which has seen a rise in violence between Turkish soldiers and Kurdish rebels.
The attack killed five soldiers and wounded at least seven more people, Anatolia said.
The rebels are based in northern Iraq and launch attacks in southeastern Turkey, The AP added.
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http://www.albawaba.com/en/news/187287
Iran sends in troops to crush border unrest
Michael Howard
Friday August 5, 2005
The Guardian
The Iranian government has deployed large numbers of troops in cities in the northwestern region which borders Iraq in an effort to quell three weeks of civil unrest that has left up to 20 people dead and more than 300 wounded, according to reports from dissident groups.
They said as many as 100,000 state security forces, backed up by helicopter gunships, had moved into the region to crack down on pro-Kurdish demonstrations.
Article continues
The claims, from Kurdish groups in Iraq, could not be independently verified, and Iranian officials remained silent about the unrest.
The state-owned news agency IRNA said the trouble was due to "hooligan and criminal elements".
News agencies have reported trouble in the northern areas over the past two weeks, though the scale of the unrest has been unclear.
The protests in the Kurdish areas came after the killing of a Kurdish activist by Iranian security forces in the city of Mahabad on July 9. Since then, anti-regime demonstrations have erupted in the mainly Kurdish towns of Sanandaj, Mahabad, Sardasht, Piranshahr, Oshnavieh, Divandareh, Baneh, Sinne, Bokan and Saqiz.
In the worst violence so far, Iranian security forces are reported to have killed at least 12 Kurdish demonstrators and injured more than 70 in a clash in the city of Saqiz on Wednesday.
Witnesses said the unrest began just before noon as hundreds of protesters attacked a paramilitary outpost with sticks and stones. Government buildings, including the governor's office, were also attacked and some were ransacked.
Protesters then gathered in the main square, chanting "Down with Khamenei", the country's supreme leader.
Witnesses said that security forces responded with live bullets, and some protesters were fired at by helicopters.
Kurdsat, an Iraqi-Kurdish satellite channel based in Sulaimaniyah, reported yesterday that police had detained as many as 1,200 people after the incident.
Further unrest was feared yesterday in Bokan and Sinne, where up to 6,000 special forces soldiers were said to have gathered. Opposition leaders appealed for calm and called for the international community to put pressure on the Iranian authorities to halt the crackdown.
In a statement, the Kurdistan Democratic party of Iran, which is based in Iraq, urged "international organisations, human-rights supporters and the international community to make efforts to stop the bloodshed of the Iranian Kurdish people by the Islamic republic regime of Iran".
"This could turn into yet another tragedy for our people," said Hussein Yazdanpanah, the general secretary of the Revolutionary Union of Kurdistan, who is in exile in the city of Irbil.
"Our people want their rights and to demonstrate and work for them peacefully. But they are being met with a brutal force."
Iranian agents provocateur were moving among the protesters, he said, "ensuring chaos and violence and thereby justifying an extreme reaction from Iranian authorities".
Iran is home to about 6 million Kurds - almost 10% of the population - who say they face discrimination and repression at the hands of the theocratic rulers in Tehran.
A UN report released last Saturday said authorities were denying basic amenities to Iran's ethnic and religious minorities and in some cases seizing land.
"Regions historically occupied by Kurds ... seem to suffer disproportionate inadequacy of services such as water and electricity and unsatisfactory reconstruction efforts," the report concluded.
But Tehran dismisses such charges and is extremely sensitive about any hint of ethnic unrest, particularly by the Kurds. Anti-government demonstrations are dealt with harshly.
Mahabad, where the activist Shwana Sayyed Qadr was killed, was the capital of the short-lived Republic of Kurdistan, established by the Kurdish leader Mustafah Barzani in 1945. It has since become a symbol for Kurdish nationalism.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1543031,00.html
Ook onrust onder Koerden in Iran.
Geplaatst door Spoetnik
The rebels are based in northern Iraq and launch attacks in southeastern Turkey, The AP added.
Terroristen of vrijheidsstrijders die strijden voor onafhankelijk van hun land?
Geplaatst door Soldim
Terroristen of vrijheidsstrijders die strijden voor onafhankelijk van hun land?
Ik weet het niet meer... ik stel voor dat we het aan mr Bush vragen hoe we deze terroristen die blijkbaar opereren in Noord Iraq moeten noemen.
Ingrijpen van Turkije in Noord Iraq komt hiermee steeds dichterbij overigens. Enorme chaos staat het midden-oosten te wachten.
En dat is precies wat de Neo-cons wilden.
Geplaatst door Spoetnik
Ik weet het niet meer... ik stel voor dat we het aan mr Bush vragen hoe we deze terroristen die blijkbaar opereren in Noord Iraq moeten noemen.
Ingrijpen van Turkije in Noord Iraq komt hiermee steeds dichterbij overigens. Enorme chaos staat het midden-oosten te wachten.
En dat is precies wat de Neo-cons wilden.
Stel dat Turkije ingrijpt in Noord-Irak? Wat denk jij dat er zal gebeuren? Zal de VS dat toelaten of zal er een crisis uitbreken dat Turkije in een isolement zal drijven?
Ik kan me voorstellen dat de clash of civilisations dan letterlijk voor de poort van Europa komt te liggen en de EU haar militaire en economische mogelijkheden zal moeten concentreren op Turkije.
Tension grows in Iraq's Kirkuk:-
BAGHDAD | August 06, 2005 8:11:49 PM IST
Tension was rising Saturday in the oil-rich Iraqi city of Kirkuk as residents say they fear an outbreak of civil war among the Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen.
Local officials in the northern city said a crisis erupted when hundreds of Kurds, accompanied by National Guards, began distributing residential lands to ethnic Kurds who were allegedly expelled from the area under the former regime of Saddam Hussein.
Turkmen sources in Kirkuk said these lands belonged to their own ethnic people before the former regime pushed them out or executed their members, after which the lands were excavated with bulldozers.
The issue of the city remains the main obstacle to reaching a consensus on the new Iraqi constitution being drawn up by a special commission, as Kurds insist that all their people who were deported to return to the city.
Some commission members are seeking a delay in discussing Kirkuk until after the general elections due at the end of this year.
The Kurds are trying to bring Kirkuk into what they call Kurdistan, but Arab Shiites and Sunnis say they are seeking co-existence among all the ethnic and sectarian groups.
(UPI)