Monday, May 31, 2010

News you may hear on mainstream media but nobody pays any attention to...

Continues from here:


Civilian toll of Iranian raids in northern Iraq enrages Kurds


Outrage is growing in Iraq's northern Kurdish territories over renewed Iranian air and artillery strikes against Kurdish rebels in the remote Qandil Mountains, officials and residents said.

Last week, Iran even sent ground forces about a mile into Iraqi territory, a brief incursion that Kurdish officials said elicited not a word of protest from the Iran-friendly administration of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who like Iran's rulers is a Shiite Muslim. Most Iraqi Kurds are Sunni Muslims. [--]

Kurdish anger boiled over with the death a week ago of 14-year-old Basoz Agha, a schoolgirl who was using her summer vacation to visit relatives in the mountain town of Raniya. An Iranian rocket exploded near her as she was making tea at the family's farm, relatives said. The local press has used her story to illustrate the inaction of the regional and central governments in dealing with Iran. [--]

The refugees come from villages on the slopes of the Qandil Mountains, and they're suffering all sorts of hardships and tragedies," said Jaafar Ali, a member of the Kurdish regional parliament who was part of a delegation to inspect the damage. "They're living in the open with no water, no toilets and no health care."

For years, neighboring Turkey also has conducted sporadic military operations in the area, in pursuit of a related Kurdish militant group, the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which seeks an autonomous Kurdish region in southeastern Turkey and which the U.S. Treasury also has designated a terrorist organization

Turkish Hypocrisies:

“ On June 4, Sevahir Bayindir, a Kurdish MP, was attacked by the police and hurt in Silopi during a protest against the military operations in the Kurdish regions. A day earlier, Firat Basan, a 14-year-old Kurdish boy, was killed when a tank rolled over him during a similar protest in Sirnak. Also on June 4, Irfan Aktar, a Kurdish journalist, received a prison sentence of one year because of an article he wrote on the Kurdish issue in a magazine. Over 1,400 members of the pro-Kurdish party DTP are in prison since 2009—some of them are elected mayors and prominent members of human rights organizations. More than one million Kurds have been displaced in Turkey in the past decade, and they can not go back to their villages because the state does not clear landmines. Paramilitary forces and military operations are leading even to new cases of displacement.”

Muslims killed by Chinese: dog bites man


The death toll from riots on Sunday, May 2nd 2010, in China's Muslim Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has risen to 140, Xinhua news agency said on Monday.


Just look who is talking:

A Turkish airstrike on Kurdish rebels hideouts in northern Iraq last week killed 19 Kurdish guerrillas and left several others wounded, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported.

The military would not confirm or deny the report. The figures could not immediately be independently verified.

The agency, citing military officials, said four rebels were killed in a separate clash Wednesday in eastern Tunceli province inside Turkey, bringing the overall rebel death toll to 23 since last week's air assault on rebel camps in northern Iraq's Hakurk, Zap and Qandil Mountain regions...

The rebels have used northern Iraq to stage hit-and-run attacks on Turkish targets for decades...

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the fighting since 1984. "

NATO kills Afghani civilians

Hundreds of angry protesters staged a protest Friday in eastern Afghanistan, accusing NATO forces of killing a dozen civilians during an overnight raid.

5 Comments:

At 1:45 AM EDT, Anonymous K2K said...

Thanks!

although I like to include these details from the AP report that barely lingers on the internet:

"...
The agency said the figures were based on intercepted radio conversations between the guerrillas and that some of the wounded were taken to local hospitals in northern Iraq and that local Iraqi Kurdish security forces were notified.

The rebels have used northern Iraq to stage hit-and-run attacks on Turkish targets for decades. Turkey often calls on Iraq to try stopping rebels from infiltrating along the mountainous border.

One soldier was killed and four others were wounded in another clash Thursday near the town of Uludere, close to the Iraqi border, the military said on its Web site.

The rebels, who fight for autonomy in the country's southeast, intensified their attacks since December when Turkey's Constitutional Court shut down a pro-Kurdish party on charges of ties to the guerrillas ..."


It certainly sounds like 1) state-sponsored terror, 2) a violation of Iraqi sovereignty, and 3) court-sponsored racism, by Turkey, worthy of an emergency UN Security Council meeting to me, but I tend to be a Kurd-enthusiast.

 
At 1:46 AM EDT, Anonymous K2K said...

Thanks!

although I like to include these details from the AP report that barely lingers on the internet:

"...
The agency said the figures were based on intercepted radio conversations between the guerrillas and that some of the wounded were taken to local hospitals in northern Iraq and that local Iraqi Kurdish security forces were notified.

The rebels have used northern Iraq to stage hit-and-run attacks on Turkish targets for decades. Turkey often calls on Iraq to try stopping rebels from infiltrating along the mountainous border.

One soldier was killed and four others were wounded in another clash Thursday near the town of Uludere, close to the Iraqi border, the military said on its Web site.

The rebels, who fight for autonomy in the country's southeast, intensified their attacks since December when Turkey's Constitutional Court shut down a pro-Kurdish party on charges of ties to the guerrillas ..."


It certainly sounds like 1) state-sponsored terror, 2) a violation of Iraqi sovereignty, and 3) court-sponsored racism, by Turkey, worthy of an emergency UN Security Council meeting to me, but I tend to be a Kurd-enthusiast.

 
At 2:43 AM EDT, Anonymous Brightstar said...

Hey Contentious nice blog...the scary picture of the Arab man with the big knife is not quite what you think. He is Yemeni, they carry these big ceremonial knives called " Jambiya " . It's just part of their culture. In Yemen the bigger and more ornamental your knife is ,the more status you are afforded. Like sports cars and Rolex watches in America. unfortunately you and others will run out and spread more misinformation. Truly sad....the first casualty in war and conflict is always the truth.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94979969

 
At 12:38 PM EDT, Anonymous TNC said...

Brightstar this may be an ornamental knife that Yemenis use to show off. I have no reason to doubt that. But why is he brandishing it in this manner after the IDF boarded the ship? Do you really think he is saying "Hey, IDF, peep my knife. It's totally awesome!" Or do you think he is brandishing it for some other reason?

 
At 4:37 AM EDT, Blogger Unknown said...

Turkey: Between Atatürk’s Secularism and Fundamentalist Islam
- Harold Rhode
Today there is an internal battle among Turkish Muslims between forces that want to be part of the Western world and those that want to return Turkey’s political identity to be based primarily on Islamic solidarity. But it isn’t Ottoman Islam that these Islamist Turks seek to revive. Their Islam is more in tune with the fanatically anti-Western principles of Saudi Wahhabi Islam.

For the entire article please go to: http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=1&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=442&PID=0&IID=3845&TTL=Turkey:_Between_Atat?rk’s_Secularism_and_Fundamentalist_Islam

 

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