Kurd families flee murder wave in north Iraq town

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/NUE747220.htm

KIRKUK, Iraq, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Hundreds of Kurdish families are fleeing a town in northern Iraq for the nearby city of Kirkuk after the murder of several Kurds fuelled fears of ethnic cleansing, local officials said on Monday.

Seven Kurds have been gunned down in the mainly Arab town of Hawija in 10 days, most of them on crowded streets in broad daylight in what Kurds say is a campaign to force them out.

Rezkar Ali, a Kirkuk city council member for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, said 543 Kurdish families, perhaps some 3,000 people, had arrived in recent days in the city. Kirkuk is coveted by Kurds, Arabs and Turkish-speaking Turkmen, not least because it sits on nearly half of Iraq's oil reserves.

Most of those who have fled are staying with relatives in Kirkuk, some 250 km (160 miles) north of Baghdad.

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[byronm]

1. Welcome to

Americanized freedom - where the right to bare arms is priority #1

[Cocoa]

2. so our training efforts aren't failing after all...

Good to see our deficit is piling up for a good cause.

Kurdish leaders and parties have blamed the attacks on the U.S.-trained Iraqi police and National Guard, as well as Hawija council members, who they say are backing the perpetrators.

[bvar22]

3. If I were a Kurd in Iraq....

...I would be very scared.
The Kurds have absolutely no reason to trust the USA or anyone named Bush. The USA has abandoned them to the slaughter more than once.
When the music stops the Kurds will probably be left standing without a chair. I fear that the deals have already been made....with Turkey and the Sunnis.

[Gregorian]

4. Offend as I may

I just cannot believe that we are sitting here blabbing about whether God created the universe, or it just happened all by itself. And whether gays should be allowed to marry each other. While these poor terrified people are running for their lives. Their lives totally disrupted and ruined. Fear, grief, pain. My family went through the very same thing. Massacre and genocide. I still feel the pain, two generations removed. What these poor people are going through will reverberate for a century. God damn Bush and those who have perpetrated this evil upon these innocent people. (And yes, I'm typing this from a warm house. I am not actively opposing what is happening, unless this counts.)

[Tinoire]

6. You don't offend.

At least not me. I've been angry about this a while and spent the entire primaries disgusted. The pain & destruction we are causing took second, third, last place to so many issues that I am sorry, could just have waited because they paled in comparison.

If there's one thing I've learned it's that both parties will use any issue to distract and that we'll fall for it everytime because too many of us are more interested in our immediate little selves than we are in peace & justice.

The war should have been our rallying cry. And it was until we let our political leaders shut us up. Shameful.

[chelsea0011]

7. You won't offend anyone here with your statements

[ckramer]

5. Bush's Iraq war will do absolutely nothing for Kurds

They will be killed as always no matter who's in power.

I think eventually the Sunny will do the killings all over again to regain the power. No on can stop them. Why? They are just born to be leaders.

Stupid war!

Thousands of our soldiers had died for nothing!

[NorthernSpy]

8. every single day...

... the situation in Iraq slips just a little bit further into total catastrophe.

:(

[diamond14]

9. the violence is escalating wildly....just when I thought it can't possibly

get any worse...something WORSE happens....

this holiday season has been GHASTLY....from the 'flattening of Falluja', where 70 % of the buildings are 'crushed' and dogs are eating the dead bodies lying in the streets....to the suicide in the mess hall...and now onward to the genocidal slaughter.....OUR troops MUST be brought home....


and I thought it was a unacceptable horror-show last March, when it was just an occasional beheading, but NOW....it's just feels like an infernal....and it will surely come to American soon....


sadly, throughout this whole holiday season, it's so clear that MOST Americans don't care.....especially because bush* doesn't care and is encouraging all Americans not to care, to just accept his perpetual wars as exciting Patriotic efforts and CHEER for those soldiers....hey hey....how exciting...be the first on one your block to have your boy come home in a BOX !!!!! yes....