An Iraqi television channel that carried live footage of protests against the autonomous Kurdish region’s dominant political bloc was attacked early today, its owner said. “At 2:00 am in Sulaimaniyah, a group of masked men carrying weapons entered the building of our television channel,” said Tuana Othman, owner of the Nalia station. “They wounded the guard with a gunshot before firing their weapons onto our equipment and then fleeing.”
Mr Othman said that while the channel was not fully up and running, it had aired live images of protests on Thursday in Sulaimaniyah, the second-biggest city in Iraqi Kurdistan, to carry out testing. In a statement following Sunday morning’s attack, Sulaimaniyah provincial governor Borhuz Mohammed called for “an inquiry into the incident and for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.”
The demonstrations had been against the Sulaimaniyah headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) of regional president Massud Barzani, and when the protesters attempted to storm the party’s offices, security guards fired into the air, killing two young men and wounding 54. Immediately following those protests, looters targeted seven offices of the Kurdish opposition Goran party, despite the bloc’s denials that it was involved in the protests at the KDP offices.
http://blogs.rnw.nl/medianetwork/iraq-kurd-tv-attacked-after-broadcast...
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Iranian artillery bombarded parts of northern Iraq's Kurdish region where Kurdish rebels opposed to Tehran are said to be holed up, an Iraqi Kurdish official said on Sunday."From 6:00 pm (1500 GMT) Saturday until this morning, Iranians fired on the villages of Khanawa, Totma, Marado, Sourkan and Nalia Rach, causing extensive damage to agricultural land and losses of livestock," said Azad Oussou.No one was killed or wounded in the shelling.
Al-Jazeera, the pan-Arab satellite television channel banned since last weekend from operating in Egypt, said Friday its offices in Cairo have been attacked."Unknown persons came into the Al-Jazeera bureau in Cairo and destroyed equipment inside," the Doha-based channel said in a statement, without giving details.Last Sunday, the Egyptian information ministry ordered Al-Jazeera -- which has given saturation coverage to the ongoing protests in Cairo -- to halt operating in Egypt, and stripped its staff of their credentials.
In March 1991, Kurdish rebels rose up against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in what is known in the region simply as "the uprising". Almost 19 years later to the day, a new political force in the region is hoping for a "peaceful uprising" of its own.After a surprisingly strong showing in Kurdish elections in July, Goran -- "Change" in Kurdish -- is aiming to break the stranglehold on power held by the region's two political dynasties, by winning the majority of seats in Sulaimaniyah in Sunday's parliamentary election.
Turkish warplanes bombed Monday several Kurdish rebel positions in neighbouring northern Iraq, the NTV news channel reported, amid an upsurge in unrest between troops and the outlawed group.Six combat planes targeted Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) bases in Zap-Khakurk in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish zone, the channel said, citing the Internet site of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.The Turkish military did not immediately comment on the air strikes.
Turkish warplanes on Thursday bombed dozens of Kurdish rebel targets in neighbouring northern Iraq, in one of the biggest raids in recent years, Turkish and Kurdish media reports said.About 20 fighter jets took part in the operation that targeted positions of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the Zap-Khakurk region of the Kurdish-held autonomous north of Iraq, the NTV news channel reported.Nearly 50 targets were hit in day-long missions carried out mainly on intelligence passed on by the United States, it said.
Iraqi Kurdish parties reiterated on Saturday that Iraq's incumbent President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, should stay on for another four years, following the March 7 general election."Our candidate for the presidency is Mam Jalal," said Massud Barzani, who himself is president of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, using the Kurdish term of respect for uncle.
After using enhanced diplomacy and trade to bolster ties with Middle Eastern neighbours, Turkey now has a new weapon to seduce the Arab world: a state television channel in Arabic accessible to more than 300 million Arabic speakers.Launched on Sunday, TRT El Turkiye became the second 24-hour channel broadcasting in a language other than Turkish, following the introduction of a Kurdish-language channel last year.According to state broadcaster TRT, the channel is the first one to address an essentially international audience, broadcasting to 22 countries via satellite.
Iraqi border guards exchanged fire with Iranian troops on the border with Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region on Thursday, the head of Iraq's border forces in Sulaimaniyah province said."Iranian forces thought that the border guards belonged to PJAK (the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan -- an Iranian Kurdish rebel group) and started to open fire," Brigadier General Ahmed Gharib Diskara told reporters."The border guards shot back and one officer of the Iraqi army has been captured. Negotiations are ongoing to free him."
Security forces loyal to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's Kurdish party were accused on Thursday of having shot and wounded three people from a rival bloc in a clash at a political meeting in northern Iraq.The incident occurred late on Tuesday at a meeting of the Goran (Change in Kurdish) movement, which emerged in regional elections last year as a rival to the two main Kurdish parties, Talabani's PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan), and the KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party), of regional president Massud Barzani.
A key Iraqi party with eight elected MPs said Saturday it has withdrawn from a Kurdish bloc, weakening an alliance whose support will decide who becomes the next prime minister."From now on we will act independently in the Iraqi parliament, where we will continue to defend the rights and demands of the Kurdish people according to the constitution," Latif Kader, an official from the Goran Party, told AFP.
Submitted by andie531 on Sun, 2011-02-20 15:39
