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| Iraq |
| Occupation and Chaos |
| 2003-04-11 |
| For the full story, go to the link - it's pretty long so only a bit was copied here. Saddam's regime has gone, but the future may not be as rosy as the victory and occupation was. According to the latest news from Iraq, the Iraqi traders have picked up gun to defend themselves against the armed looters. The UN has warned that Iraqis may flee their country because of chaos and disorder. Also in northern Iraq quarrel between the Kurds and Turkmen has flared up for the control of oil resources of the region. What follows is sum-up of some untoward developments in Iraq in post-occupation days. Shopkeepers opened fire Friday on mobs of looters in the Iraqi capital, which has been marred by sporadic clashes with small pockets of pro-Saddam resistance since the collapse of the strongman's government. U.S. marines patrolled checkpoints throughout Baghdad, where no attacks against coalition troops were reported Friday morning. But shopkeepers in central Baghdad opened fire on looters for the first time since U.S. troops entered the city, and the widespread chaos left 25 people injured. "We want the law to rule and if the Americans don't defend us then we'll defend ourselves with our own weapons," said merchant Khazen Hussein. Iraqi Kurds and Turkmens engaged in a fierce war of words Friday in Ankara, Turkish capital, after Kurdish fighters captured the strategic oil-rich Iraqi town of Kirkuk, claimed by both groups as their historic homeland. A leader of the Iraqi Turkmens, who have ethnic bonds with Turkey, accused Kurds of murder and looting in Kirkuk, while a Kurdish official said the charges were aimed at triggering a Turkish military intervention against them. Mustafa Ziya of the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITC) said Kurds were burning and looting government offices, including those dealing with property registry, and attacking Turkmen interests "in order to annihilate the Turkmen existence." Ziya said he had received unconfirmed reports that some 50 people had been killed in the northern Iraqi town since Thursday, when U.S. troops and Kurdish fighters took control with little resistance. Kirkuk Governor Rizgarali Hamgam told AFP Friday the situation was spiralling out of the control of local Kurdish chiefs, adding that several people had been killed. But Bahroz Galali, the Ankara representative of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), whose fighters entered Kirkuk Thursday with U.S. special forces, rejected the Turkmen allegations as "wrong from A to Z and propaganda." Galali said "some quarters here are trying to create a pretext for the Turkish Army to intervene in northern Iraq." Ankara has threatened to intervene militarily if Kirkuk and the other key regional oil center Mosul fell to Kurdish control. |
| Posted by:Tadderly |
| #1 You mean that as they say in Texas, "He needed killing," is what they are using lampposts for now? Well then partner, heres alot of rope. |
| Posted by: TJ Jackson 2003-04-12 00:24:53 |