Word: kirkuki
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...delayed, Kurds forced out of Kirkuk by the old regime's ethnic-cleansing program would try to return on their own. If that happens and if the Iraqi government hasn't moved out the "new" Arabs transplanted there under Saddam, "there will be civil war," according to Kamal Kirkuki, vice president of the Kurdistan Parliament and head of a committee overseeing territorial disputes. Delay would give insurgents that much longer to set off car bombs and push the city closer to Baghdad-style sectarian revenge killings...
Against Kirkuk, a city of nearly a million, Saddam had unleashed an indiscriminate barrage from tanks, helicopter gunships, heavy artillery, Katyusha rockets and ground-to-ground missiles. The Kurds reported raids by Sukhoi bombers as well -- despite the coalition ban on Iraq's use of fixed- wing aircraft. Kamal Kirkuki, a member of the Kurdish resistance, claimed that more than 100,000 women and children had been captured around the city. "If the Iraqis act true to form," he said, "they will all be butchered." One horror story was being passed from mouth to mouth: of Kurdish infants strapped...
...uprising that began on March 4 in the town of Rania spread like a sandstorm to engulf all Iraqi Kurdistan. The peshmerga (those who face death), as the rebel fighters are called, did not need to capture towns, as local Iraqi Kurdish militiamen spontaneously joined the rebellion. Fighter Kamal Kirkuki repeated joyfully to all who would listen, "We Kurds are finally free." Jails were thrown open; prisoners set at liberty. Kurds spoke openly of their travails without fear of retribution from Baghdad's once omnipresent spies. Even the discovery of the horrors of Saddam's torture camps -- corpses studded with...
Some Western analysts also believe that Saddam is engaging in a kind of demographic sabotage. "The refugees are being buzzed and shot at by gunships from behind," said a British diplomat, "clearly with intent to force them toward the borders." Kurdish leader Kirkuki agreed: "The Iraqis are continuing to herd us to these rocky cemeteries in order to rid themselves of the Kurdish problem once...
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