Kurds

On a quiet stretch of road flanked by the rolling hills of northern Nineveh province stands a checkpoint many fear could become the next frontline in a new conflict over age-old issues of land and power dividing Arabs and Kurds. To the west lies the provincial capital, Mosul: insurgent-infested and, since April, governed by a hard-line Arab nationalist group that is seeking to affirm Nineveh's Arab identity.

Turkey launched land and air assaults into neighboring Iraq on Wednesday after Kurdish militants killed at least 24 soldiers and injured 18 in the latest in a series of deadly strikes near the border, authorities said. The Turkish offensive across the Iraqi border included helicopter gunships, ground commandos and fighter jets, authorities said. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan canceled a foreign trip and labeled the operation a legal "hot pursuit" of terrorists operating out of Iraq's Kurdish region.

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.

The White House is prepared to keep as many as 10,000 U.S. troops in Iraq after the end of the year, amid growing concern that the planned pullout of virtually all remaining American forces would lead to intensified militant attacks, according to U.S. officials. Keeping troops in Iraq after the deadline for their departure at the end of December would require agreement of Iraq's deeply divided government, which is far from certain. The Iraqis so far have not made a formal request for U.S. troops to remain, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Your editorial on Iraq's arms (Sept. 25) neglected to mention the plight of the Kurds. Any rapprochement of the West with the government of Iraq should include political security for the millions of Kurds who were the victims of Saddam Hussein's genocide before the Gulf War and immediately after, had he not been stopped by the U.S. and its allies. YONA SABAR Los Angeles

This is in response "No-Fly Policy on Target" (editorial, March 4), where your paper advocates keeping pressure on Saddam Hussein in order for him not to repeat the brutal air attacks he carried out against his southern Shiite populace and northern Kurds. The only question that remains for The Times to answer is how do we protect the same Kurds from brutal annihilation by our friend and ally Turkey and its army, which frequently crosses the border into Iraq (a sovereign nation) in pursuit of the same Kurds we are protecting from Saddam.

Just think of what a truly "new world order" we would have today if, instead of wanting to take care of Hussein, Bush and company had wanted to take care of the Kurds way back in August when the world had its best chance! HUNTLEY C. LEWIS San Marino

The plight of the Kurdish people is a direct result of the war in the Persian Gulf, and the Kurds are reliving the Holocaust of World War II. In that respect, President Bush was right on target when he compared Saddam Hussein to Adolf Hitler. Why have we spent so much money and energy to put the emir of Kuwait and his royal family back on their thrones while giving minimal aid and lip service to the suffering Kurds, whom we have encouraged to strive for democracy? DOROTHY CHAPMAN, San Clemente

An entire nation, some 30 million Kurds, are being treated like criminals. A language, a culture, a color of the human rainbow--all are endangered, and in the rest of the world, for the most part, it's business as usual. I pray each night for the souls of the Kurds, whose fate I could have shared had not fortune thrown me to this side of the ocean. KANI XULAM Santa Barbara

Syrian security forces loyal to President Bashar Assad, ignoring international pressure, fired on anti-government protesters, killing at least 34 on a day activists tried to draw the country's Kurdish minority into the nationwide movement for political change. The violent response to the demonstrations defied President Obama's call just hours earlier for Assad to either embrace political change in Syria or give up power. Security forces and plainclothes shabiha militiamen recruited from Assad's dominant Alawite minority, a small Shiite Muslim sect, fired on protesters, burned down the homes and shops of suspected protesters, and rounded people up and took them to detention centers, activists said.

Syrian President Bashar Assad made new concessions Thursday to the country's minority Kurdish population after some members joined pro-democracy demonstrators, threatening to create a new flank in Assad's political crisis. The government said it would grant citizenship to hundreds of thousands of Kurds in the northeast who have been counted as illegal immigrants since a controversial census in 1962. That left them unable to secure public sector jobs, passports and other basic citizenship rights.

Three car bombs exploded Wednesday in the northern city of Kirkuk, killing seven people and wounding 67, Iraqi police said. The assaults were a combination of timed bombs and a suicide attack that occurred nearly simultaneously at midmorning. The first car bomb blew up as a police patrol passed. The second bombing was a suicide attack outside the front checkpoint for the headquarters for Kurdish intelligence. The third explosion took place not far from the compound's back side.

A suicide bomber killed at least 25 people and wounded 70 others Friday in Diyala province, a troubled region northeast of Baghdad. The nighttime explosion tore through a crowded cafe frequented by Shiite Kurds. Rescuers had to sift through rubble in search of survivors, said witnesses and a police officer who provided the casualty figures. The attack bore the hallmarks of the militant group Al Qaeda in Iraq. Its probable intent was to escalate frictions in the province, with its mix of Shiite Arabs, Sunni Arabs and Shiite and Sunni Kurds.

At a small but heavily fortified outpost on the edge of this dust-blown town, a contingent of American soldiers has recently taken up residence alongside Kurdish and Arab forces in what is likely to be one of the last new missions undertaken by the U.S. military in Iraq. Known simply as Checkpoint 3, the outpost in Nineveh province is one of about two dozen erected over the last six months along a line stretching across northern Iraq from Syria in the west to Iran in the east. It marks the ill-defined and highly disputed border between Kurdish- and Arab-controlled territories.

The spokesman for Iraq's Kurdish region criticized the Obama administration Thursday in Washington for not doing enough to end the current political impasse and urged American officials to embark on "intense shuttle diplomacy" between the deadlocked political parties. Qubad Talabani, who represents the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq, said U.S. officials in Iraq have had limited involvement in efforts by political parties to form a government in the two months since the inconclusive national elections in March.

Mohammad Haider's family buried him quietly, without a funeral, as they had been instructed by Syrian authorities. The Syrian Kurd's body was returned March 23, two days after security forces opened fire on a Kurdish New Year's celebration in northern Syria sponsored by a political party, human-rights groups said. The killing, which surfaced Monday, underscored worsening conditions for the minority. Syrian Kurds, who live in the north near the border with Turkey, have a long and fraught relationship with the state.

The Iraqi government on Monday hanged Ali Hassan Majid, one of the most notorious figures of Saddam Hussein's regime, who had earned the nickname "Chemical Ali" for his gassing of Kurds in the late 1980s. Majid was executed after being sentenced to death in four cases brought before an Iraqi criminal court for the killing of Kurds and Shiites during the rule of Hussein, his first cousin. The hanging was announced by government spokesman Ali Dabbagh on Iraqi television. Prime Minister Nouri Maliki said in a statement, "By executing Ali Majid, another black page in the book of repression, genocide and crimes against humanity has been closed."