Turkish airstrikes on suspected rebel targets in northern Iraq killed seven civilians Sunday, Iraqi officials said.

 

The Syrian army Sunday took control of several neighborhoods in Homs, the scene of deadly violence last week, while security forces conducted a spate of arrests in Damascus.

More than 50 people have been killed in the past week in Homs, 160 kilometers north of Damascus, either by army gunfire or in clashes between rival groups of demonstrators, rights activists have said.

The troops stormed a northwestern village Sunday and made sweeping arrests in a region where the army has been conducting operations for weeks to crush growing dissent against the regime.

Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces have taken control of three bases of an Iranian Kurdish opposition group in neighboring Iraq, the state news agency reported Monday.

"Since the brutal repression of nationwide dissent following the 2009 elections, authorities are now increasing their crackdown on Kurds.

German experts have confirmed the authenticity of photographs that purport to show PKK fighters killed by chemical weapons. The evidence puts increasing pressure on the Turkish government, which has long been suspected of using such weapons against Kurdish rebels.

"A suicide bomber targeted Turkish police in the heart of Istanbul on Sunday, killing himself, injuring 32, and prompting police gunfire.

"Turkey is also home to an array of small non-Kurdish militant groups, from those on the far left, to right-wing nationalists, to Islamists.

More than 150 Kurds, including a dozen elected mayors, went on trial Monday for alleged links with a Kurdish guerrilla group at a time when the Turkish government is engaged in efforts to reconcile with the members of this ethnic minority.

What if, instead of slavery, the United States had murdered all of the African Americans? What if, instead of relocating some Native American tribes, they were completely wiped out? This annihilation is essentially what happened with the Armenians in the early 1900's and the Kurd …

"A bombing at a martial parade in western Iran on Wednesday killed at least 12 people, including a 5-year-old child and the wives of two Iranian military commanders. The explosion struck amid a large crowd attending the event, which was intended to underscore the nation's battle readiness.

"Iranian officials quickly pointed the finger at the United States, and the local Friday prayer leader blamed "Zionists."

"Mr. Erdoğan has talked about my mother and my father. Now, in a speech in Gaziantep, he even questioned my kin," Kılıçdaroğlu said Monday, adding that he was proud of his ancestry and his family.

"I have a suggestion to Mr. Recep. If he wants to learn about my family, then he can examine the state records. But if he is so curious about people's ancestry, he may as well come and measure my skull. I would not mind it."

"President Barack Obama has personally warned Turkey's prime minister that unless Ankara shifts its position on Israel and Iran it stands little chance of obtaining the US weapons it wants to buy.

"Shocking Images of Dead Kurdish Fighters"

"German experts have confirmed the authenticity of photographs that purport to show PKK fighters killed by chemical weapons. The evidence puts increasing pressure on the Turkish government, which has long been suspected of using such weapons against Kurdish rebels. German politicians are demanding an investigation.

"As the United States works toward a drawdown of combat forces in Iraq by this August, and a withdrawal of all troops by 2011, military commanders and diplomats are scrambling to make sure that the Iraqi government will be ready to take over. Recent discussions have focused on the real, short-term challenges of finalizing national elections and forming a new government. But these talks have often deferred or overlooked the one underlying issue that has become the elephant in the room: Kurdistan.

This may be because Kurdistan, in many ways, seems so sui generis, a world apart from the rest of Iraq. Situated in the northern part of the country and bordering Turkey, Iran, and Syria, the Kurdish region of Iraq (organized into a formal association of three provinces referred to here as "Kurdistan") has a distinct history and topography.

"On March 21, 2010, the Syrian security forces opened fire with live ammunition on a crowd of 5,000 in the northern Syrian town of al-Raqqah. The crowd had gathered to celebrate the Kurdish festival of Nowruz. Three people, including a 15-year-old girl, were killed. Over 50 were injured. Dozens of injured civilians were held incommunicado by the authorities following the events. Some remain incarcerated. This incident was just one example of the repression taking place of the largest national minority in Syria – namely, the Syrian Kurdish population.

" Four people were killed and 12 wounded in Turkey on Tuesday, when suspected Kurdish rebels detonated a remote-controlled bomb on a bus carrying military personnel and their families.

Turkish air raids in Iraq's Kurdish north have killed a teenage girl - the first reported civilian death from shelling that began last week. Turkish warplanes often bomb suspected Turkish Kurdish rebel positions in the self-rule mountainous region

"Ahmedido Domingo (aka Ahmadinejad), Erdogano Pavarotti (aka Erdogan) and Assad Carreras (aka Bashar Assad) singing about the benefits of terrorism.

Turkey's military said Friday it killed as many as 120 Kurdish rebels in an air raid on rebel hideouts in northern Iraq last month and a daylong incursion by elite commandos into Iraq this week.

"Kurdish separatist rebels carried out two attacks on troops in southeast Turkey, killing one soldier in a gun battle and separately wounding 14 by detonating a roadside bomb, military officials said on Friday.

"Although most of the recent talk regarding flotillas has revolved around ships sailing toward Gaza, at least two plans have emerged for "reverse flotillas" – from Israel toward Turkey – to highlight what organizers have labeled the Turks' "shameless hypocrisy" in their criticisms of the Jewish state.

The most ambitious of the two plans has been devised by members of Israel's National Student Union, who this week announced their intention to set sail toward Turkey, in an effort to bring humanitarian aid to the "oppressed people of Turkish Kurdistan" and to members of the "Turkish Armenian minority."

"I have been following the reactions of the Turkish government and I must say that I am appalled at their hypocrisy at the expense of the Palestinians.

In the past 15 years, the Turkish government has ethnically cleansed large parts of Turkey's ethnically Kurdish southeast, has invaded Iraq more than a few times, and keeps occupying and colonizing the northern half of the Republic of Cyprus, a sovereign country, member of the UN and the EU. Yet today, the Turkish government has somehow managed to proclaim itself the defender of international law and protector of the oppressed."

"Turkish warplanes bombed Monday several Kurdish rebel positions in neighbouring northern Iraq, the NTV news channel reported"

"The Free Kurdistan Movement, human rights group, says it is planning the first international flotilla and motor convoy to reach Turkish-occupied Kurdistan-

"Iranian authorities executed five prisoners, four of them ethnic Kurds, without warning their families, and have so far refused to release their bodies, Human Rights Watch said today. These executions follow convictions that appear to have relied on the use of torture.

"The remains of more than 100 unidentified children who died of hunger and disease during a harsh crackdown on Iraqi Kurds by Saddam Hussein were buried on Tuesday in the Kurdish town of Chamchamal.

"The arrests were part of the "Anfal" campaign aimed at suppressing the Kurds, whom the regime regarded with suspicion.

The detainees were sent to prison in Dibis, northeast of Kirkuk in northern Iraq. Many of the children died of hunger and disease and were later buried in mass graves. Their bodies were exhumed after Saddam's fall in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

"The following excerpts are from a TV report on Komalah, a Kurdish opposition group fighting Iran, which aired on Al-Arabiya TV on March 18, 2010.

"This camp is being exposed to cameras for the first time, and for the first time, a team of journalists have been able to see what is concealed behind the walls of the most important base for training the fighters of the Iranian Komalah.

This organization opposes the Iranian regime, and fights it on its own turf, carrying out operations classified by Iranian intelligence as "top secret." Most of them are Kurdish Iranians. The rest are of other national affiliations, who have despaired of everything but fighting and planning armed operations, which are carried out in the territory of one of the region's most dangerous intelligence organizations

An exhibit at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles recalls one of worst atrocities of the late 20th century, the gassing of 5,000 Kurdish men, women and children in the town of Halabja by former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

Success stories of state-building in the Middle East have been few. The United Arab Emirates has certainly been one. Qatar, and to an extent Bahrain and Jordan, are now featuring high on good governance indexes. Yet the most impressive of all has been Iraqi Kurdistan.

SADDAM Hussein's look-alike cousin Iraq's former Defense Minister Ali Hassan Al-Majid - better known as 'Chemical Ali' - has been sentenced to death for "crimes against humanity" that he was found to have committed in 1988 against residents of the Iraqi-Kurdish town o …

"The Democratic Society Party" - that's an ironic name for a political party that was banned by order of Turkey's Constitutional Court earlier this month. But the Kurds in Turkey, who belong to that party, know that in that country, a democratic society is far beyond their reach.

In 1937, authorities of the then young Turkish republic decided to use military force against what they saw as an unruly region dominated by clans of Kurdish Alevis. Tens of thousands of soldiers were sent to fight against insurgents led by Said Riza, a local clan chief.

Turkey's Constitutional Court has voted to ban the country's largest pro-Kurdish party because of alleged links with Kurdish separatist rebels.

Two Kurds protesting the closure of a pro-Kurdish party were shot dead and seven were wounded on Tuesday after shopkeepers attacked them in the southeastern Turkish town of Mus, security officials said.

Some 15 million Kurds abruptly lost their newly proclaimed faith in blossoming democracy last Friday, when the Turkish Constitutional Court declared their representation in parliament a "danger to the integrity and unity of the state" and banned its two leading men from polit …

"The international community, in particular the United States and the European Union, should ensure that human rights concerns, including the treatment of Kurds, are part of their discussions with Syria," the New York-based group said in a report.

Kurds compose as much as 20 percent of Turkey's population, yet for decades the government banned their political parties and denied them the most basic cultural rights, including the right to use their own language.

"Syria is persecuting its Kurdish minority, detaining activists and banning peaceful gatherings, even as neighboring countries have improved their treatment of the Kurds, an international human rights group said Thursday.

"A senior Kurdish official confirms Iran's start on the building of a wall separating the Islamic Republic with Iraq's Kurdistan Region, meant to prevent separatists from crossing the mountainous border"

parliamentarian with a pro-Kurdish party in Turkey was sentenced Tuesday to 18 months in jail for spreading 'propaganda' on behalf of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

The Diyarbakır 5th High Criminal Court found lawyer Erin Keskin, theater actor Murat Batgi and author Edip Polat guilty of "inciting hatred and hostility" and handed down a 1 year prison sentence to each of them.

"Looking at more modern history, the first genocide of the 20th century began on April 24, 1915. By 1918, 2.65 million Christians including 750,000 Assyrians, 1.5 million Armenians, and 400,000 Greeks were killed by the Ottoman Empire and the Kurds."

Veteran reporter Jane Arraf says in an interview from Baghdad that the massive truck bombings on August 19 in the capital have shaken the Iraqi people and government. She says the repercussions will be lasting. U.S.

The ability of Armenia to live, prosper, and determine its own future is what Armenians demand.

"Any notion that the invasion of Iraq was simply an oil grab took another hit on Tuesday when Baghdad opened the bidding on the rights to develop its massive energy reserves. In a day-long auction of eight huge oil fields — some of the world's biggest — virtually all the 41 foreign companies invited to bid by the Iraqi government balked at the Baghdad terms. The only contract signed was a 20-year deal for a consortium led by BP and China's National Petroleum Corporation to develop the giant Rumaila field in southern Iraq.

"George Galloway's confrontational approach to politics has created a malestrom for him. He stands accused of inflaming anti-British sentiment in Iran after its supreme leader publicly singled out "evil" Britain as the foremost enemy of the Islamic republic. Galloway appeared on Iranian television backing the regime of President Ahmadinejad and blaming the BBC for helping foment unrest in Tehran.

Known as the PKK after its Kurdish name, Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan, the group is labeled a terrorist organization by Washington, and continues to conduct strikes inside Turkey.

The Kurds have suffered immeasurably under authoritarian Arab rule since the creation of the artificial state of Iraq.

Over the past six years of violence in Iraq, oil has been the flashpoint in Kirkuk, a city forever home to a combustible mixture of races. Kurds have always claimed Kirkuk as a homeland; Turkomans, Assyrians and Arabs have at various times based empires here.

Yasin Yetişgen is the editor of the local Çoban Ateşi (Shepherd's Fire) newspaper in Gaziantep, southern Turkey.

"There has never been anything like this before," says Mazhar Bagli, a sociologist at Dicle University in the south-east.

The attorney for a former rector who is standing trial in the case of Ergenekon, a clandestine group which allegedly attempted to overthrow the government, has blatantly defended in court his view that there is nothing wrong with "wishing for Kurds to die."

When, after Öcalan's capture in 1999, fighting stopped, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which came to power in 2002, seemed to offer a solution to the Kurdish question with a series of reforms aimed at attaining membership in the European Union through democratic …

A recently released survey on the attitudes and opinions of Turkey's "elites" has shown that they deem themselves the "real owners of the country" and are unwilling to share their power and prosperity with other groups.

According to the researchers, this group, which has monopolized the modernization process of Turkey and see themselves as the carriers of Republican values, feels increasingly insecure and in the minority amid the growth of the "newcomers."

Why did she go off to war? Why would she leave behind the possibility of middle-class happiness--of education, marriage, and a family? And it is, indeed, a possibility. Turkey's burgeoning middle class is full of such success stories.

Those who have fought against this step forward for the Kurds fear the future or the next step after this, indeed if commitment and work continues like this the future looks bright.

In a lively market town hotly disputed between Iraqi Kurds and Baghdad's Arab-led government, Khalil Ibrahim points at the ground under his feet to illustrate what he thinks the dispute is about: oil.

The first Zarawa internally displaced persons (IDP) camp was in a valley in the Qandil Mountains. It wasn't home, but it was situated next to a cool stream and was close to the eight villages of the 132 families, who had fled violence rained down on them by Turkey and Iran.

When members of the special Turkish police unit Jitem arrived at night, Kurdish inhabitants of southeast Turkey knew there would be another disappearance.

Iran's official news agency says Iranian border guards have killed several Kurdish separatists in a shootout in the western part of the country.

For years, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has positioned himself as a champion of the ethnic Kurds who make up one fifth of Turkey's population.

The leader of Turkey's Kurdish lawmakers startled the country Tuesday by addressing Parliament in his native language, breaking the law in a nation that has tried for decades to keep a firm grip on the restive minority amid fears of national division.

The Kurdish leader proposing to end a 25-year-long conflict with Turkey that has cost 30,000 lives believes his peace offer is a once in a generation opportunity that must be grasped by both sides.

INSIDE a concrete shack in the predominantly Kurdish slum of Daglioglu, in south-east Turkey, 17-year-old "Mehmet" (he cannot give his real name) rolls up his trousers and points to a deep scar.

Born in Istanbul in 1952, in 2005 Pamuk was charged with having declared to the Swiss weekly Das Magazin that "we Turks are responsible for the death of 30 thousand Kurds and a million Armenians and no-one in Turkey dares speak about it, except me".

Police clashed with stone-throwing demonstrators across the country's predominantly Kurdish southeast Sunday during protests marking the 10th anniversary of a separatist rebel leader's capture.

The closest U.S. allies in Iraq — the Kurds — feel abandoned by Washington these days and say war with the Arab-dominated central government is likely without American pressure to resolve disputes that predate even the era of Saddam Hussein.

"Police clashed with hundreds of stone-throwing Kurdish protesters in southern Turkey on Saturday, and about 20 people were slightly injured, including seven children, a news agency reported.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had a temper tantrum at the Davos forum on world economics recently.

"Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stalked off the stage at the World Economic Forum, red-faced after verbally sparring with Israeli President Shimon Peres over the fighting in Gaza.

"Iran and Turkey want to undermine security and stability in Kurdistan in northern Iraq, according to Muhammad Ihsan, Foreign Minister for the regional government. He was speaking about continued air and ground assaults by the two countries inside the region, supposedly to target separatists from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

"Turkish Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul is in Israel for a two-day visit, the focus of which is to examine a batch of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that Turkey is slated to acquire, Turkish officials said.

According to Turkish media reports, last year Turkey began operating the medium-altitude Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Elbit-made Heron UAVs over northern Iraq, home to scores of Kurdish rebel bases. "

" A new phenomenon is spreading through the Christian towns and villages of northern Iraq: Christian security forces, organized through their local churches, are manning checkpoints and working with the Iraqi police.

"A few years ago, Christian churches were being bombed and thousands of Christian families in Baghdad and elsewhere were terrorized into fleeing their homes. Many of them wound up in the north, where they seem to be thriving

" Funny how the Not In My Name crowd always overlooks aggression by Communist or 'former' Communist regimes. There's no such reticence when it comes to portraying George W. Bush as the new Hitler or daubing swastikas on the Israeli flag. Look at the protests against the wars in Iraq and Lebanon.

The same people who can't wait to burn the American flag in Trafalgar Square are only too happy to ignore Russian, Chinese and Iraqi genocide

Where were all the marchers when the Russians were crushing Chechnya? Why so silent on Tibet? They must have been looking the other way when Saddam slaughtered the Kurds.

"Turkey is facing a domestic political crisis that not only threatens the country's internal stability but could weaken its ties to the West and exacerbate instability in the Middle East.

In February, the Turkish public prosecutor forwarded a 161-page indictment to the Constitutional Court that calls for the governing Justice and Development Party, or AKP, to be closed down and for 71 of its leading politicians, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul, to be banned from politics for five years. The indictment charges that the party violated secularism, a fundamental principle enshrined in the Turkish Constitution. The Constitutional Court starts final hearings in the case on Monday"

''The Syrian regime is torturing the country's Kurdish minority and is planning an ethnic cleansing in the Kurdish region, a Kurdish opposition group says.

Syria's plan to move 10,000 troops into the country's Kurdish region could mark a dangerous turn in the attitude towards this ethnic minority, Sherko 'Abbas, president of the United States-based Syria has around 300,000 Kurds who are considered stateless foreigners, 'Abbas said, and are being oppressed in the framework of what he called Syria's "Arabization policy."National Assembly of Syria told The Media Line.

A well-researched article from Churchill's Parrot-- including some facts of which many people are unaware.

And-- warnings of the very real dangers that might lie ahead if we act unwisely...

'... Who gave them the right to do this? People have the right to decide for themselves what they do and don't want."

''"We, in the East - and I am talking about the East in a broad sense, including Pakistan, Turkey, and the Kurds... The way I see it, these are all wretched people, wretched men. This is obvious. He who has nothing cannot give anything to others. These men have lost what could have given them a real sense of masculinity. They draw their masculinity from Islam, if they are Muslims, of if they are non-Muslims, from the customs and tradition of the very harsh society that gives men more rights than women. Hence, they do not draw any strength from within.

To the American Freedom Fighters on Veteran's Day:

Today, November 11th is Veteran's Day. This is an opportunity to honor, recognize and thank our men and women who have served in the armed forces, especially our men and women who have liberated Iraq, from the clutches of a brutal fascist dictatorship, and are now working tirelessly with enthusiastic Iraqis to bring Iraq into the 21st century. In free Iraq the law protects Iraqis' lives, dignity and property. Free Iraqis' religious practices, their free speech and their human rights is guaranteed by a constitution. Free Iraqis vote for their leaders, criticize them and live to tell about it

[...]

To all the men and women who have served and serving in Iraq, to all the families of those who have paid the ultimate price to all those who have suffered during their service in Iraq, my family's and my deepest thanks, gratitude and pride both from my family in the U.S. and my family in Iraq for all the sacrifices, endurance and service for our great country and Iraq and the Iraqis. God bless all of you and keep you safe.

Regards,
Haider Ajina
An Iraqi-American

Tonight (Wednesday evening) heavy rioting erupted in Turkish quarters of Brussels, the capital of Belgium. Buses and trams were attacked. Several cars were torched and shops destroyed. Police forces were unable to restore law and order in the boroughs of Sint-Joost-ten-Node and Schaarbeek where since last Sunday the animosity among Turks is running high. Turkish flags are omnipresent. In some streets the Turkish crescent and star adorns almost every house.

The Turks' anger was provoked by rising tension with Kurds along the Iraqi-Turkish border and by the debate in the American Congress about the Turkish genocide of the Armenians in 1915. On Sunday night Turkish youths in Sint-Joost destroyed the pub of Peter Petrossian, an ethnic Armenian who had to flee for his life. Apparently, some Turks think that by attacking the Armenians in Brussels they can convince the world that the Turks never committed a genocide of the Armenians.

Tonight the youths attacked Kurdish shops. They also set fire to several cars.

Quagmire update:

Another five star hotel is scheduled to open in 2009 in Iraq. Rotunda Hotels is planning on building a five star property in Erbil to add to its chain. The Erbil International Hotel, pictured above, is currently the only five star hotel in the region.

Abu Dhabi-based Rotana Hotels said on Tuesday it would develop a $55 million five-star property in Erbil in Iraq's Kurdish region, which has largely been spared the violence affecting the rest of the country.

The ministry of tourism last month said three or four times the current numbers of hotels were needed. The city's international airport handled about 170,000 passengers in 2006 and the regional government is building a new airport to handle 1.5 million, according to the London-based Kurdistan Development Corporation.

At British Islamic discussion forum Ummah.com, we discover some more Muslims (in Canada and in Texas) who completely misunderstand the meaning of the word jihad. Guys, come on. Read the memos. It's a peaceful inner struggle:

"Abbas786
Soldier of Islam
Location: Canada

Who is fighting the pure Jihad?

Aslamulikum Brothers and Sisters,

I have a very important question that I need to ask the Muslim community. I think this is a question that occupies the minds of Muslim men when the question of Jihad is presented to them. Who is right?

I believe that the Jihad in all Muslim lands that were occupied is justified but the question remains, who is fighting for land and who is fighting for Allah SWT?

I will listen some of the groups that are right and maybe wrong at the same time, but I want your opinion.

Taliban - Fighting Americans but they are also fighting Pakistani Troops, Northern Alliance and many other Muslim factions.
Hamas - Fighting Israel and Fatah (Muslims).
Hezbollah - Fighting Israel but don't voice their opinion when Fatah-Islam was being killed and they fought a civil war against Muslims as well.
Iraqi Mujahideen - Fighting Americans yet they also fight Sunni/Shia/Kurds.

So, you tell me, how can a man decide who is right or wrong, how can they tell who to fight for and what these groups are fighting for?

Excerpt:

"Any proper visit to Iraq should include a call on one of the many armed guerrilla groups that inhabit the mountainous Kurdish region in the north. With the right contacts and a sturdy car, you can meet with members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) - a terrorist organization that has been at war with Turkey for 23 years - in their de-facto autonomous region high in the Kandil Mountains. Granted, a trip to their camps might be interrupted by the occasional shelling from Turkey or Iran, or an unpleasant encounter with an uppity young guerrilla at a checkpoint.

Alternatively, one phone call and a 10-minute drive from the city of Suleimaniya can get you a lunch date with a group of revolutionaries dedicated to the overthrow of the Iranian state. And while the PKK only offers its guests flat Coca-Cola in small glasses, these guys will give you a full meal.

Mohtadi, who sat with co-revolutionary Muhammad Shafei, spoke English with a perfect British accent. Having spent many years in the UK, he had acquired the air of an intellectual-cum-rebel: a well-educated and cultured man who had traded a comfortable life in the West for armed struggle against the Iranian state. Although himself a Kurd, Mohtadi insisted that his battle was not simply for Kurdish rights or autonomy within Iran; instead, Komala is dedicated to the complete overthrow of the religious regime in Teheran and its replacement with a democratic government that respects the rights of all of the country's many minority groups. This end has remained the same since the party's founding in 1969 and motivated its early struggles against the oppressive, American-backed Shah Reza Pahlavi."

The United States abandoned the Kurds in 1975 and again in 1991. Sixteen years separated these first two betrayals. Another 16 years have elapsed, and America may be on the verge of another betrayal, however unintended and inadvertent, of the residents of Iraqi Kurdistan.

The Kurds can well hold the key to destroying radical Islam. If an independent Kurdistan were to be established, Iran, Syria and Iraq would likely fall by the wayside as threats to the US.

Excerpt:

"Hundreds of Iraqi Yezidis, members of an ancient religious sect heavily influenced by Persian Zoroastrianism, were murdered last week in the most deadly terrorist attack in the world since September 11, 2001. Fuel tankers packed with explosives were ignited in a refugee camp near the town of Kahtaniya, just outside the Kurdish autonomous region. Officials say the death toll has surpassed 500. The American military says this is the handiwork of al Qaeda. They're probably right: this has their fingerprints all over it....

The Yezidis have never declared war on anyone. They are the closest thing Iraq has to Quakers. Perhaps al Qaeda massacred the Yezidi refugees because they were a soft target, and because terrorists need body counts to be credible.

Iran has demanded that Iraqi Kurds leave their border villages.

Kurdish sources said Iran's military has dropped leaflets into Iraqi Kurdish villages that call for their immediate evacuation. The leaflets warned the Kurds of impending Iranian military strikes.

"The authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran will work on cleansing this area," the leaflet said.

Iraqi Kurdish officials expressed deepening concern yesterday at an upsurge in fierce clashes between Kurdish guerrillas and Iranian forces in the remote border area of north-east Iraq, where Tehran has recently deployed thousands of Revolutionary Guards.

Who are the Kurds? Most people in the west don't know too much about them-- I admit that I didn't until I did some reading....

Although much of what is published in KOS is inaccurate and misleading, this is one of the best articles I've read about the Kurds. They are an unusual people, with a very impressive history!

Michael J. Totten is a free-lance journalist, usually based in Beirut. He has traveled to various places in the mid-east, and writes some interesting "human interest" stories...often these provide some excellent background information to current events-- things you wouldn't know if your main source of news is the mainstream media-- or, for that matter, most of the "alternative media".

This article is about his visit to the Yezidis of Iraq:

Excerpt:

In Northern Iraq there is a place called Lalish where the Yezidis say the universe was born. I drove south from Dohok on snowy roads through an empty land, seemingly to the ends of the earth, and found it nestled among cold hills.

I went there because the President of Dohok University told me to go. "I am a Muslim," he said. "But I love the Yezidis. Theirs is the original religion of the Kurds. Only through the Yezidis can I speak to God in my own language."

Yezidis are ancient fire-worshippers. They heavily influenced Zoroastrianism, and in turn have been heavily influenced by Sufi Islam. The temple at Lalish is their "Mecca."

. . .

..."Are you friends with Satan?" I said. "Some Muslims have told me Yezidis are friends with Satan." I didn't tell him that my driver, who was standing right next to me, had said this only a half-hour ago.

"We are not friends with Satan. This is a common point of confusion. They mean Malek Taus. He is the King of the Angels, and the Yezidis follow his way."