UNHCR's ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING THE ...
UNHCR's ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING THE ...
UNHCR's ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING THE ...
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News report of September 2006 provided evidence that Kurdish Peshmerga received<br />
military training from Israelis, which re-enforced the view that the Kurds are “traitors” and<br />
collaborate with the “enemies”. 534 For example, Al-Qa’eda in Iraq views the Kurds as<br />
a “Trojan Horse” for economic infiltration into Iraq by Jews. 535<br />
For these reasons, a number of targeted attacks on Kurdish political and military<br />
representatives, KDP and the PUK offices and Kurdish civilians have taken place since<br />
2003 and are reportedly on the rise. 536 For example, on 15 January 2007, a suicide car<br />
bomber killed at least five people and wounded 28 more in an attack on a KDP office in<br />
Mosul. 537<br />
Kurds in minority areas such as Baghdad, Fallujah and Ramadi have been displaced by<br />
force. 538 Many Kurds from Mosul City, the western side of which once had a majority of<br />
Kurds (and Christians), have been displaced, mostly to the three Northern Governorates. 539<br />
Other groups in Iraq are widely considered to have supported the US-led invasion and<br />
international military presence in Iraq. Among them, in particular and as demonstrated<br />
above, are the Shi’ites, Yazidis, Christians, Roma and Jews. 540<br />
2004, http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/040628fa_fact; Al Jazeera, Iran warns Iraq of Israeli<br />
agents in Kurdish north, 10 March 2004, http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=5070.<br />
534<br />
BBC News, Kurdish soldiers trained by Israelis, 20 September 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/<br />
programmes/newsnight/5363116.stm.<br />
535<br />
MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base, Al-Qaeda Organization in the Land of the Two Rivers,<br />
http://www.tkb.org/Group. jsp?groupID=4416 [last updated 16 January 2007]. See also “Jews 419F ”.<br />
536<br />
See, for example, Yahya Barzanji and Lee Keath, Northern Iraq grows increasingly violent, AP,<br />
9 October 2006, http://www.iraqupdates.com/p_articles.php/article/10944; Dr. Rebwar Fatah, When cultural<br />
difference turns to bloodshed, KurdishMedia.com, http://www.kurdmedia.com/articles.asp?id=12732.<br />
537<br />
Reuters Alertnet, Factbox – Security developments in Iraq, Jan 15, 15 January 2007,<br />
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L15252128.htm. Major incidents include the suicide bombing at<br />
a police recruitment centre in Erbil on 4 May 2005, in which around 60 people were killed and up to 150<br />
wounded; see BBC News, Suicide bomber hits Iraqi Kurds, 4 May 2005,<br />
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4511799.stm; three days earlier, 25 people were killed when a suicide<br />
bomber attacked the funeral of a KDP official, who had been killed a few days earlier in Telafar. Also in<br />
Erbil, at least 101 people were killed in twin suicide bombings striking the KDP and the PUK offices on<br />
1 February 2004. The KDP lost at least three senior government members in the attack, including the Minister<br />
for the Council of Ministerial Affairs, Shawkat Shaykh Yazdin, Agriculture Minister Sa’d Abdullah and Sami<br />
Abd Al-Rahman, the KRG’s Deputy Prime Minister in Erbil; three senior PUK members also died in the<br />
attack; see: Valentinas Mitte, Iraq: Suicide Attacks In Irbil Could Lead To Stronger Kurdish Unity, RFE/RL,<br />
2 February 2004, http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/02/2ccc05d3-0dc3-4e12-aa0e-0c9484b6a8d2.html.<br />
538<br />
IRIN, Iraq: Kurds continue to flee cities of Sunni triangle, 5 October 2004, http://www.irinnews.org/<br />
Report.aspx?ReportId=24128; Michael Howard, Kurds flee Fallujah in fear, The Washington Times, 5 July<br />
2004, http://washingtontimes.com/world/20040506-110737-5615r.htm.<br />
539<br />
Al-Khalidi and Tanner, p. 17, see above footnote 161. See also: Shamal Akrayi, Kurds and Christians<br />
flee Mosul’s insecurity, The Kurdish Globe, 17 October 2006, http://www.kurdishaspect.com/doc1017<br />
100.html; Bay Area, Iraqi Kurdistan: Families Flee Rising Violence, 11 October 2006, http://www.unpo.org/<br />
article.php?id=5599. See “Internal Flight or Relocation Alternative”.<br />
540<br />
See also the relevant chapters under “Religious Groups” and “Ethnic Groups”.<br />
106