|
Kirkuk: Iraqi Arab gunmen massacred
Kurdish Shiite family
22.4.2007 |
|
|
|
April
22, 2007
Kirkuk, (Iraq-Kurdistan region) border, --
Gunmen massacred a Kurdish Shiite family in Iraq's
northern oil hub of Kirkuk on Saturday, killing an
eight-year-old girl, her elder sister and and
parents, police and a medic said.
Police Captain Mohammed Ibrahim said gunmen broke
into the house of Dawood Nuri Mohammed al-Ari and
killed him, along with his wife and two daughters.
"The eight-year-old daughter, Sunoor, was
slaughtered," he told AFP indicating that her neck
was cut from her body.
Ibrahim said the killings appeared to be sectarian
as "nothing was stolen" from the family's home.
In the past few months, insurgents have stepped up
attacks in and around Kirkuk, an ethnically volatile
city claimed by both Arabs and Kurds.
Longstanding Kurdish demands for the city to
incorporated in their Kurdistan autonomous region in
northern Iraq are to be put to a referendum before
December 30.
AFP
Kirkuk city is a Kurdistani city and it lies just
south border of the Kurdistan autonomous region and
it is not under the full control of Kurdistan
Regional Government administration, its population
is a mix of majority Kurds and minority of Arabs,
Turkmen.
The former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein forced
about 250,000 Kurdish residents to give up their
homes to Arabs in the 1970s, to "Arabize" the city
and the region's oil industry.
Based on Iraq's Constitution a referendum is to be
held in late 2007 to decide whether the oil-rich
Kurdish province should be annexed to the safe
semiautonomous Kurdistan region in Iraq's north.
Top |
Kurd Net
does not take credit for and is not responsible for the content of news
information on this page
|
® 