Kurds

For decades, Arab soldiers and Kurdish guerrillas battled by gun, by mortar, by rocket. Now, elections are the latest weapon in the struggle for land and power in Iraq's north. The ballot box has become a battleground in Nineveh province, a high-stakes combat zone where Kurds and Arabs will face off over the future shape of the country -- and confront each other over the past. The outcome could set the stage for another round of violence, which both sides insist that they do not want.

Unarmed Kurdish rebels in combat dress marched into Turkey from northern Iraq on Monday in a show of support for peace with the Turkish government. The eight rebels, along with 26 other Kurds, were immediately detained by Turkish paramilitary police after crossing the border gate at Habur. They were moved to a military battalion's headquarters for questioning by prosecutors, the state-run Anatolian news agency reported. Earlier, Kurds in northern Iraq celebrated with music and drums as the group left from a refugee camp, the news agency reported.

The general with the easy smile has been here before. A little over a decade ago, Saddam Hussein dispatched him to this province where the oil wells belch orange flames day and night. Now another Iraqi Arab leader has sent him north, in a battle of wills over Kirkuk that has awakened the past and raised fear of new fighting in the territory that the Kurds consider their Jerusalem.

The cry went up loud and clear from the tens of thousands of people crammed together at the campaign rally. "Change! Change!" the crowd chanted. "With our hearts we vote for change!" Indeed, change has in many ways already come to Iraq's normally placid semiautonomous region of Kurdistan, the latest scene of a grass-roots movement demanding new leadership and political reforms.

The army of grievers climbed to the hilltop at dawn, waiting for the 365 flag-draped coffins to arrive. Some sat weeping in the stony dirt amid row after row of empty graves; others lined the streets for blocks. They clutched framed pictures of husbands and wives, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters -- all victims of Saddam Hussein's 1988 genocidal campaign against the Kurds. When the coffins came, carried up the hill on the backs of soldiers, the lamentation could wait no longer.

Turkish troops clashed with Kurdish militants in the snowy mountains of northern Iraq on Friday after staging an invasion, the most serious offensive in years in Turkey's conflict with anti-government rebels. Iraq's government reacted angrily, demanding the troops' withdrawal and accusing Turkey of destroying five bridges in violation of its pledge to target only rebel bases. The White House confirmed that it knew in advance of the invasion.

At least 33 Kurdish separatists and eight Turkish soldiers were killed Sunday, the fourth day of a cross-border offensive against rebel hide-outs in northern Iraq, Turkey's military said. A military helicopter crashed in the mountain terrain, but it wasn't immediately clear whether the eight soldiers were aboard the aircraft. The rebels said they had shot it down, but Turkey did not confirm that.

Artillery and gunfire echoed through the mountains of northern Iraq on Monday during continued clashes between invading Turkish troops and Kurdish rebels, with Turkey saying that 153 guerrillas had been killed in four days. Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad Bolani suggested that the United States should do more to stop the fighting, which has left villagers stranded by bombed-out bridges. "They are the greatest force on the ground. They have certain obligations," Bolani said Monday of the U.S.

Lawmakers in northern Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region authorized their military Tuesday to intervene if Turkish forces pursuing anti-government rebels bring their battle into civilian areas. The move heightened fears that the conflict could draw in Iraqi Kurdish forces and destabilize the one region of Iraq that has been relatively peaceful since the U.S. invasion in March 2003.