Word: arbil
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...flies into Arbil, the sole sign of war is the airport's security. Kurdish soldiers--or peshmerga, as they are known--sit in tall watchtowers posted on the perimeter, and civilian vehicles are kept outside the airport gates, where baggage searchers wear ski masks to hide their faces. Flights from the new Kurdistan Airlines and other carriers arrive directly from Istanbul, Frankfurt, Dubai and Beirut. Austrian Airlines will add a Vienna flight next month...
Indeed, the sensation of not being in Iraq is a key factor in Kurdistan's boom. Almost no Iraqi flag flies, and fewer than 1,000 U.S. soldiers are deployed in the territory. In the lobby of Arbil's only five-star hotel, which is filled with American and European businessmen discussing prospects, the buzz in the crowd has one persistent theme: in the world's most dangerous country, foreign businesses can work safely by basing their Iraq operations in Kurdistan rather than 200 miles south in Baghdad. "For anybody wanting to do anything in Iraq today, the entry point...
...Jeon, editor in chief of Pressian, a popular online news site that has refused to accept restrictions. "If we go along with it, we won't be able to inform the public if unfortunate things happen to our troops." In reality, that's less likely in Kurdish-controlled Arbil, which is far from the chaos in southern Iraq...
South Korea's troops are landing in Iraq, but very, very discreetly. Last week in the northern city of Arbil, a convoy of flatbed trucks carrying construction machinery and ambulances rumbled through town to a base being constructed on the city outskirts, trailed by a camouflaged armored vehicle with an Arabic sign reading "We Are Friends." Back home, friends and relatives could barely get any news of the troops, although South Korea will soon have the third largest number of foreign soldiers on Iraqi soil?3,600?after the U.S. and Britain. Citing security concerns, Seoul in July requested Korean...
Elsewhere too, Iraqis are taking matters into their own hands. Traveling east toward the Kurdish city of Arbil, one encounters checkpoints every 10 miles or so. The peshmerga fighters who man the roadblocks address drivers in Kurdish. If the drivers are Arabs who cannot speak the local language, their cars are pulled aside and thoroughly searched. The checkpoints went up after devastating bomb attacks in February against both major Kurdish parties killed more than 100 people...