UNHCR's ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING THE ...

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