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| Iraq |
| Irbil corpse count now at 70 |
| 2004-02-02 |
| The day began in bright sunshine, a fitting way to start the four-day Muslim holiday, the Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice. The streets of the regional capital of Iraqi Kurdistan were blissfully traffic free as Kurdish families took advantage of the clear blue skies and crisp winter air to visit friends and relatives. At the offices of the region’s two main political groups, the Kurdistan Democratic party and its rival the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, celebrations were also in full swing. But the seasonal greetings being exchanged between hundreds of party faithful and other well-wishers were about to be shattered. Shortly before 11am two men, apparently wearing Kurdish dress, suicide belts wrapped around their waist, slipped past the normally tight security at the party buildings to deliver their own Eid message. In explosions that appeared to be carefully synchronised, they killed at least 70 people and injured more than 200. They also shook Kurdistan and its war-weary people to the core, and raised fears that the debilitating insurgency that has brought havoc to the rest of the country has found a new battleground. There had been attacks in the Kurd’s northern enclave before, but nothing to compare to yesterday’s atrocities, which killed many high-ranking politicians and local leaders. The attacks marked the first time that bombers have struck with such force at the Kurdish parties in the northern region, an area previously regarded as far more peaceful than most of Iraq. At the KDP’s headquarters near the Kurdish parliament in the city centre, the reception room was crowded at the time of the blast. Witnesses said people were jostling to shake hands with party leaders who included Sami Abdurrahman, a veteran Kurdish leader who was the deputy prime minister of the Kurdish regional government and one of the Kurds’ toughest - and best - negotiators. Alongside him stood, among others, the minister of agriculture, Saad Abdullah, the governor of Irbil, and the head of the city’s police force. Sheikh Allein, a local tribal leader, said: "It was so busy and everyone was in a good mood. I was a few feet away from Sami. Then a man stepped forward to shake hands and - bang. I don’t remember much else but I saw immediately that many of our leaders had been ripped apart. I am lucky to be alive." It was a similar scene across town, at the PUK’s regional headquarters, where leaders moved through hundreds of people gathered in the conference room, shaking hands and kissing old friends. Abdullah Ahmed, 22, was acting as an usher. Speaking from a hospital bed, he recalled: "I saw a man entering the room carrying a flower for one of the leaders. He looked a bit odd and as he stepped forward to one of the officials, I saw him move his hand towards his pocket and one of the bodyguards hurling himself toward the man. Then there was an explosion and I woke up in hospital. I know Kurds have enemies, but how could this happen in Kurdistan?" Mohammed Rizgar, a war-grizzled PUK peshmerga, ran into the hall after the blast occurred. "I have fought in many battles but I never saw anything like that. Everything was ruined. There were fingers, legs, bits of face, everywhere." "The scene is pretty chaotic," Qubad Talabani, son of the PUK leader Jalal Talabani, told CNN. "We are hearing reports of many casualties. There are many, many injured as well. What seems to have happened is some of the walls seem to have collapsed in a building so that many people seem to be trapped under rubble. It was a very big day for the parties because of the holiday season and well-wishers going to the party headquarters." Irbil soon echoed to the sound of sirens as the dead were taken to the morgue, and the injured to the city’s hospitals. News of the death of the deputy prime minister and his colleagues spread across town. There was pandemonium in the Rizgari general hospital, as porters tried to push trolleys along blood-stained corridors clogged with frantic friends and relatives. Doctors screamed at nurses for bandages and blood, and then more blood. Peshmerga fighters guarded the hospital gates to prevent hundreds more distraught relatives from entering, though some of them wanted to give blood to their injured loved ones. In the intensive care unit, a man lay unconscious, twitching violently and held down by members of his family. He was in charge of electricity for the city; he had severe head injuries and was not expected to last the night. In the ward next door, men with charred faces and hands, and torsos slashed with shrapnel screeched in agony as their wounds were dressed. The minister of health, Jamal Abdulhameed, said US forces offered to ferry emergency medical supplies from nearby Mosul. He said Irbil’s health system was "stretched to the limit but that they were coping". He added: "This is a tragic day for Kurds, who have suffered so much in the past. But we are a tough and resilient people and we won’t let either former Baathists or Islamic madmen deprive us or our freedom." Many of the wounded who were still able to speak talked of their undimmed determination to fight for Kurdish rights in Iraq, called into question by recent geopolitical machinations. "I have nearly died for Kurdistan under Saddam and I nearly died today," said Sirwan Razek, a KDP peshmerga, as he was visited by Mahmoud Othman, a senior Kurdish politician. "Make sure that our political parties don’t let us down again," he said before drifting into unconsciousness. The call for unity among the often fratricidal Kurdish parties was a familiar refrain among the wounded. "These bombers have shown us that all Kurds are targets, and it must now be time to pull together and push for our rights in Baghdad," Dr Othman said. Idris Ahmed, a member of the PUK who was being treated for serious burns to his face, told Reuters: "We received well-wishers for the Eid al-Adha holiday in our building, whether Arab, Kurd or Turkmen. We will fight terrorism and the terrorists who carried out this explosion." The PUK and the KDP are on the verge of uniting their divided administrations in the north to form a common front in the face of opposition to a Kurdish federal state. Dr Othman said the attacks showed that even Kurdistan, which has been largely free from the insecurity of the centre, was "not immune to acts of terrorism". Last night speculation as to who was responsible for the attack centred on Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish Islamist group that is suspected of having connections with al-Qaida. Colonel Harry Schute, the senior US officer in the self-rule area, said there had been no warnings of the attack, but that "it has the fingerprints of Ansar al-Islam or al-Qaida, or whatever they have morphed into, all over it". |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #5 Lets just let them all go at it with each other for say two weeks. |
| Posted by: XMAN 2004-2-2 1:09:38 PM |
| #4 Are we all gonna be surprised when a large Sunni gathering goes explosively bad? Pissing off the Kurds is a bad idea. |
| Posted by: mojo 2004-2-2 11:00:06 AM |
| #3 the religion of peace |
| Posted by: B 2004-2-2 10:12:02 AM |
| #2 WashPost reported that "Kurdish television reported that both bombers had been dressed as Muslim clerics". symbolic |
| Posted by: mhw 2004-2-2 7:59:28 AM |
| #1 Dan, good posts.. buh.. please edit them down some next time ;) |
| Posted by: Dcreeper 2004-2-2 3:03:51 AM |