MESOP’S KURDISTAN SHORT CUTS NEWS
Kurds Mark 25th Anniversary of Halabja Massacre
VOA – Kurds across the globe are marking the 25th anniversary of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s deadly chemical attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja. The attack killed about 5,000 Iraqi Kurds and injured about 10,000 others. The White House issued a statement Saturday honoring the families of those who died in the “horrific massacre” and pledging to ensure that perpetrators of such crimes are held accountable…
Notes From The Underground: The Rise of Nouri al-Maliki
World Policy Institute – It was December 2010, and Nouri Kamal al-Maliki sat in a faux palace, erected by Saddam Hussein, on the Feast of Sacrifice, one of the most sacred days in the Muslim Calendar. The politician, who had just secured his second term as prime minister of Iraq after an eight-month stalemate, sat in a gilded, thronelike chair, surrounded by members of his Shiite religious Dawa Party…
10 Years After US Invasion, Kurds Look to the West
ABC News – At an elite private school in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, children learn Turkish and English before Arabic. University students dream of jobs in Europe, not Baghdad. And a local entrepreneur says he doesn’t like doing business elsewhere because the rest of the country is too unstable…
The Economist – ZEHRA CACAN sits on the edge of a fresh grave strewn with flowers and prays quietly. In it lies her 30-year-old son, whose nom de guerre, Serxwebun, means insurrection in Kurdish. He died in January in a clash with the Turkish army on the Iraqi border. Hundreds of his fellow fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) are also buried in the Yenisehir cemetery in Diyarbakir. Their graves are distinguished by the red, yellow and green ribbons adorning their headstones…
No longer forgotten: a Kurdish view of the Iraq war
The Guardian – “Did it happen?” I asked my father instantly after I woke up on the morning of 20 March 2003, to which my father replied with a smile, “Yes”. Yes, the United States of America and its allies began their attacks on Iraq. Yes, my life was going to change. And it did. Since that rainy day I spent in the countryside because we were scared Saddam Hussein was going to use weapons of mass destruction against Kurdish cities, my life has never been the same…