WORLD
May 20, 2011 | By Borzou Daragahi and Alexandra Sandels, Los Angeles Times
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.
WORLD
April 8, 2011 | By Garrett Therolf and Alexandra Sandels, Los Angeles Times
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.
WORLD
February 10, 2011 | By Asso Ahmed and Raheem Salman, Los Angeles Times
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.
WORLD
October 30, 2010 | By Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times
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.
WORLD
June 16, 2010 | By Liz Sly, Los Angeles Times
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.
WORLD
May 13, 2010 | By Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times
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.