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— Los Angeles Times staff

IRAQ: Stars gather for concert in Kurdistan

Before a crowd of about 3,000 people, a group featuring some of world music's best-known performers -- including drummer Tariq Snare, all the way from Brooklyn, Iranian musician Sohrab Pournazeri (shown above playing the kamancheh) and multi-instrumentalist Matthaios Tsahourides of Greece -- played in Kurdistan on Friday. "Our group includes four different nationalities, and this event expresses the dialogue among different cultures," said Hussain Zahawy of Kurdistan, who plays the frame drum.

"Each state has its own culture and traditions, but after all, we are all human," Tsahourides said. See more pictures of the show below.

IRAQ: Gay-sex story lands writer in jail

A court in northern Iraq's Kurdistan region has sentenced a freelance journalist to six months in prison and a fine for writing an article about gay sex, a penalty that media groups say violates the law and underscores the lack of press freedom in Kurdistan.

The Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders, groups that monitor press freedom across the world, are among the international organizations demanding the release of Adel Hussein, who was arrested Nov. 24 in the Kurdish city of Irbil. "I find the verdict strange," said Kamal Raoof, the editor of the Kurdish newspaper Hawlati, which published Hussein's story. "The government claims there is freedom in the region."

Hussein, whose article appeared in Hawlati in April 2007, is the second Kurdish journalist to land in prison in the past month. On Nov. 8, the editor in chief of the Hawal newspaper, Shwan Dawoody, was given a month in jail and a fine for a series of stories his paper ran that were critical of the judiciary in Sulaymaniya, which is part of the semiautonomous Kurdistan region.

The court that sentenced Hussein, who is a doctor specializing in sexual and reproductive diseases, said he had violated "public custom" by writing about health issues related to gay sex. But Hussein's lawyer and the Kurdistan Journalists' Union said the court relied upon a 1969 law that was recently superseded by a law protecting press freedom and banning the jailing of journalists.

Raoof said Hussein's story was scientific, not prurient, and did not encourage homosexual behavior, as the court suggested. Homosexuality is taboo across Iraq, including in Kurdistan, and anyone seen as promoting it or practicing it is liable to be shunned by society, or worse. 

In its most recent report on human rights in Iraq, the United Nations took aim at Kurdistan for violating freedom-of-expression guarantees. The report, released a few days after Hussein's arrest and sentence, said the U.N. "continued to receive reports of intimidation and/or arrests of media professionals in the Kurdistan region, in particular those who had reported on issues of public interest."

-- Asso Ahmed in Sulaymaniya

IRAQ: Turkey's fight with Kurdish separatists

A separatist Kurdish leader sounded defiant this week after Turkey's parliament authorized more attacks against his group in northern Iraq. "We are ready and our forces are ready. We are not afraid of them. If they want to attack Iraq's Kurdistan, then the Middle East will turn into a fire ball,” Bozan Takeen, a senior leader from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), warned on Thursday by phone from his hideout in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Takeen, who is based in Iraqi Kurdistan’s Qandil mountains, which border Turkey and Iran, was speaking after Turkey’s parliament on Wednesday extended for one more year Ankara’s right to carry out military raids against the PKK in Iraqi Kurdistan.

IRAQ: U.N. looks to solve Kirkuk problem

The United Nations is pressing ahead with its mission to find a solution for Iraq's troubled northern region, where Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen are in a fight for land and power. Nothing is more prized than the mixed-city of Kirkuk and its province, which sits atop oil reserves. 

The head of the UN mission in Iraq, Staffan de Mistura, said the United Nations aimed to present its ideas on how to settle the competition for Kirkuk in September or October.  "We are pushing for a grand deal, looking at the whole area," de Mistura said Tuesday. "Our aim is to draw up options by October, which if all Iraqi parties work consistently on those, could provide a peaceful political solution, which eventually may be confirmed or sanctioned through a confirmatory referendum." 

In Iraq's world of intractable politics it is an open question whether the various sides will seize upon the United Nations' ideas. Last December, as the deadline passed for an Iraqi referendum on Kirkuk's fate, the Iraqi government accepted the United Nations proposal to present possible solutions regarding the volatile city. 

All sides have refused to budge on Kirkuk. Arabs and Turkmen are violently opposed to a referendum in Kirkuk. They believe the Kurds have brought strangers down to live in the city in order to rig such a vote.

The United Nations assembled a team of 15 advisors to survey the disputed areas in northern Iraq and to propose compromises that could break the deadlock over the referendum. The team also is surveying contested lands in Nineveh, Salahaddin and Diyala provinces.

The tensions are a legacy of the late dictator Saddam Hussein's policy of expelling Kurds and settling Arabs in strategic areas. The United Nations produced its first assessment in June on disputed lands, which covered the areas of Mahmour, Akre and Hamdaniya in Nineveh province, as well as Mandeli in Diyala. The study was criticized by the Kurds. However, it remains to be seen whether Iraqi politicians will be more receptive to the United Nations' suggestions in the future.

-- Ned Parker in Baghdad

IRAN: Report says U.S. waging secret war

An explosive article by veteran New Yorker investigative reporter Seymour Hersh alleges that the U.S. has secretly allocated up to $400 million to run covert operations against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Hersh alleges that the Bush administration is funding Iranian Arab and Baluchi militant groups as well other groups including possible Kurdish rebels and the Mujahedin Khalq, or MKO, a cult-like militant group with offices in Paris and fighters in Iraq that opposes the Islamic Republic. The money was also to be used to dig up intel on Iran's nuclear program, a source of major friction between Tehran and the West.

The report alleges that the Bush administration briefed Congressional leaders about the stepped up activity late last year.

"Clandestine operations against Iran are not new," Hersh writes, in a report that will appear in the July 7 and 14 issue of the New Yorker. "But the scale and the scope of the operations ... have now been significantly expanded."

IRAQ: Kurdish 'men of the night' ply dangerous trade with Iran

They are known as the “men of the night.”

A rugged group sits in front of a liquor store in the northern foothills of Iraq, swapping stories and glasses of whiskey as their horses feed nearby. As dusk approaches, they begin strapping heavy cartons onto their animals for the long journey ahead.

Their cargo: bottles of Absolut vodka, Johnnie Walker and Chivas Regal Scotch whiskey destined for Iran.

Photo: A smuggler loads his horse with a carton of liquor before the long and dangerous trip into Iran. Credit: Asso Ahmed/Los Angeles Times.

IRAQ: Summer music in Kurdistan

Once, Azzadi garden was a military base where tens of Kurdish citizens were executed under the rule of deposed dictator Saddam Hussein.

So the Kurdish folk songs wafting on its summer breeze last week had a special meaning for residents who gathered there to welcome the season with music.

"My body and soul moved as I listened to the music, especially in this environment," said Shireen Wihab, 29. "I never felt like this before."

Download  music clip

Download  music clip

Altogether, the Ministry of Culture put on 24 concerts across the three Kurdish provinces. The musicians played late into the night in gardens, hospitals, infirmaries and even jails.

IRAQ: The Kurds struggle, inside a tent city

She was singing in a low voice while sewing a frock for her little girl, Tavga Ahmed, who stood quietly at her side. Home for the girl and her mother, Owaz Jamal, is a tent, one of about 200 erected in a remote mountainous area of Iraq near the Iranian border.

This tent city was hastily established after the latest round of air strikes from Turkish forces sent residents of Rezga, about 35 miles away, fleeing for safety. Most left everything behind — their livestock, their clothes, sometimes even their money. It is a life many have become accustomed to as the tensions between Kurdish separatists operating from bases in the mountains lead to clashes with Turkish troops.

IRAQ: Sufi rituals in Kurdistan

More than 2,000 Kurdish Sufis gathered Saturday at religious shrines in Barzanchi, a village 37 miles east of Sulaymaniya in Kurdistan. The followers of the mystical Islamic sect practiced their rituals. Worshippers beat drums and chanted Allah (God) as dervishes swallowed swords and then cut themselves with the blades.Others ate light bulbs and swallowed fire.