Tag: Iraq

JOHN HANCHETTE, NIAGARA FALLS REPORTER, JULY 10, 2006 OLEAN — This space has been used in the past for commentary on the Middle Eastern anomaly of the Kurds, the largest ethnic group on the planet without their own official state. When President Dubya invaded Iraq in 2003, only a tiny fraction of Americans had ever…

ELISABETH ROSENTHAL, NEW YOUR TIMES, JUNE 24, 2006 GHENT, Belgium — For 18 years, Dr. Aubin Heyndrickx has tended the sealed jars containing strands of hair and scraps of clothing he gathered from a dead woman’s body. Collected in Halabja, one of many Kurdish towns in northern Iraq that were attacked with chemical weapons by…

KURDISHASPECT.COM, JUNE 19, 2006 Halabja, June 17– a Kurdish Farmer in Seirawan area found a chemical bomb Saturday near Halabja in northern Iraq as he was reconstructing his house that had been torn down in the eighties by the former Iraqi regime, reported Awene the independent newspaper from southern Kurdistan. A source, that did not…

KURDISHMEDIA.COM, JUNE 6, 2006 Kurdish ‘Layla’- a survivor of Halabja genocide – in David & Layla screens on opening night – Avignon Film Festival, France. Iranian Hollywood actress SHIVA ROSE playing Kurdish Layla – a survivor of Halabja genocide – in DAVID & LAYLA screens on Opening Night with John Turturro’s film at 23rd Annual…

TOBY STERLING, JUNE 7, 2006 THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) – A Dutch businessman was convicted of defying a U.N. embargo on the regime of former Liberian President Charles Taylor and sentenced to eight years in prison Wednesday. A human rights group called the conviction of Guus Kouwenhoven a fresh warning that merchants who deal with…

KATHY KELLY, ELECTRONC IRAQ, MAY 27, 2006 “Anfal.” It means, “to take everything.” In 1988, Saddam Hussein ordered a genocidal campaign, the Anfal Operation, against 4,500 defenseless Kurdish villages in northern Iraq. 180,000 people who couldn’t escape are believed to have been buried in unknown mass graves. The Iraqi military deliberately contaminated water sources with…

HALABJA, Iraq (AFP) — An X-ray of Kamil Abdel Qader’s lungs show a lower third that is entirely scarred — lasting damage from the poisonous gas that rained down on his Iraqi Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988. Doctors say he needs to get a fist-size chunk of tissue removed from his damaged lungs if…

Donald Rumsfeld shakes hands with Saddam during his visit to Iraq on December 19-20, 1983. Declassified papers leave the White House hawk exposed over his role during the Iran-Iraq war. He visited again on March 24, 1984, the day the UN released a report that mustard gas and the nerve gas Tabun had been used…

May 5, 2006 “They say that corrupt officials have siphoned most of the money.” Before it became a symbol of Saddam Hussein’s persecution of the Kurds, Halabja was one of the most prosperous communities in Iraq. Pomegranates, grains, grapes, tobacco and nuts grew in Halabja’s fertile soil. Local factories employed those not working in the…

Awene – By Bakhtiyar Ali By Bakhtiyar Ali (Awene, March 28, 2006) Until March 16, if anyone would have asked me about the most appalling political event in the past twenty years, I would have answered that it was on August 31, 1996 (when the Kurdistan Democratic Party asked Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi forces to help…

KurdishMedia.com – By Vladimir van Wilgenburg The Dutch socialistic party SP requested Dutch Minister Van Ardenne (Development cooperation) to finance a medical project for the Kurdish victims of the chemical attack in Halabja. A health project of the KRG [Kurdish Regional Government], Liverpool university and several organizations is about to stop due to the lack…

16 Mar 2006 15:37:14 GMT Source: Reuters By Marwan Mohammed HALABJA, Iraq, March 16 (Reuters) – Hundreds of Kurdish protesters destroyed a memorial to the 1988 gas attack in the Iraqi town of Halabja on Thursday, setting the museum ablaze on the 18th anniversary of the deaths of 5,000 local people. A hospital official said…

Thousands of people are reported to have been killed and many others injured in a poison gas attack on a Kurdish city in northern Iraq. Up to 20 aircraft, said to include Iraqi Migs and Mirages, were seen overhead at around 1100 local time in Halabja. According to experts, the chemicals dropped by the planes…