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.

IRAQ: Shooting hoops amid the crossfire

The tallest player on the women's national basketball squad is 5 feet, 7 inches. She and her teammates cannot practice in the nation's capital because of poor security. And in northern Kurdistan, where they are now based, they practice outdoors, often in frigid temperatures.

Nonetheless, what they lack in height they make up for in enthusiasm, said Deb Packwood, an American consultant hired to develop the fledgling team, which aims to raise its international profile and someday compete in the Olympics.

Packwood, who played some college basketball at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkansas, is working on behalf of the Iraqi Basketball Assn. and the National Olympic Committee, which are seeking to revive a sport that has been crippled by war, inadequate financial backing and the growing challenges women face in a nation that is increasingly religiously conservative.

"The people, they don't like the girls to play," said team member Rajwa Abdul Ahad, 28. "They say, 'No . . . it's bad for you.' But I don't care because basketball, it is in my blood."

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—Kimi Yoshino in Sulaymaniya, Iraq

Photo: Girls practice basketball in Kurdistan, northern Iraq. The Iraqi Basketball Assn. is trying to revive the sport, which has been crippled by war, inadequate financial backing and the challenges facing women in a nation that is increasingly religiously conservative. They've hired Deb Packwood, an American consultant to develop a fledgling team, with hopes, someday, of competing in the Olympics. Credit: Asso Ahmed / For the Times

IRAN: Rebel forces fighting proxy wars in Iraq

A series of conflicts with insurgent groups along Iran's borders may be impelling Tehran to back its own allies in Iraq in what it regards as a proxy war with the U.S., according to security experts and officials in the U.S., Iran and Iraq.

Dozens of Iranian officials, members of the security forces and insurgents belonging to Kurdish, Arab Iranian and Baluch groups have died in the fighting in recent years. It now appears to be heating up once again after an unusually cold and snowy winter.

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—Borzou Daragahi in Beirut

Photo: A Kurdish rebel from Pejak inspects a crater left behind by an alleged Iranian artillery attack near a mountain encampment in Qandil in northern Iraq on April 13. The group threatened to launch bomb attacks inside Iran. Credit: SHWAN MOHAMMED / AFP

IRAQ: Celebrating Nowruz, the Persian New Year, in the Kurdish hills

Armed with picnic baskets and dressed in their brightest holiday finery, Iraqi Kurds headed into the hills Friday to celebrate a cherished holiday that coincides with the first day of spring.

There was barely an inch to spare around Lake Dukan, north of the Kurdish city of Sulaymaniya, where families gathered by the thousands to grill meat, sing folk songs and dance a traditional line dance called the dabka.

"This year is different," said Osman Ahmed, who was walking around the lake with his new wife. "Iraq in general has become more secure recently and this adds to our joy."

IRAQ: No hunting allowed

The security chief along the gorgeous and mountainous stretch of the Iraq-Turkey border was a genial man. He welcomed us into his office  and invited us to sit down by his desk. He served us tea, and then fed us a line of bull.

I pressed him about the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, the Kurdish militant group that has been attacking Turkish soldiers. Was it true, as we'd heard, that the fighters came to this town, Mergasur, for medical treatment? Do they ever visit the town's hospital? Do any of the nonprofit organizations in town or villagers give them support?

He paused thoughtfully, rubbing his chin. "You know," he said, "a lot of things that are allowed in other parts of Iraqi Kurdistan aren't allowed here. Cutting down trees, for example. If you cut down a tree, I'll put you in jail for two months."

IRAQ: Not without her daughter

You know the story. A Middle Eastern man marries an American woman. They have a daughter, the marriage falls apart and he swipes the kid and takes her back to the old country.

But scholar Denise Natali, 44, adds a new twist to the story. She married a man from the Middle East. They moved to Paris, but it's she who brought her 7-year-old daughter to the region, to pursue a job at the newly founded University of Kurdistan-Hawler in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil.

Her husband, a successful Paris restaurateur and an ethnic Kurd from Turkey, is packing up his business and following his wife back to the Middle East, albeit skeptically.

IRAQ: Man on the hilltop

With yellowed fingers, the aging Kurdish warrior lights another cigarette and speaks his mind.

For decades Nawshirwan Mustafa fought for Kurdish autonomy against the tyranny of Baghdad. The steely-eyed intellectual turned guerrilla commander helped secretly organize the 1991 uprising against Saddam Hussein that challenged Baghdad's rule in the north and led to the establishment of the Kurdish autonomous region.

Now at 63 he's embarked on a new crusade: against his fellow Kurdish warriors, whom he accuses of corruption and complacency.

"There is no separation of the political parties from the government," he says. "There's no transparency. There's cronyism and nepotism in the appointment of high officials."

IRAQ: Pomegranate season

Cool mountain breezes grace the golden hilltops of Kurdistan, bending the dry blades of grass. Across rocky mountain slopes studded with pine trees, upon yellowed high desert plains strewn with boulders, in grassy valleys along foaming rivers, a hundred wedding celebrations bloom.

With the threats of a Turkish invasion receding, Kurds have resumed the joys of life. They tend to celebrate weddings outdoors. The men get gussied up in traditional baggy trousers and cummerbunds. The women slide into glittery emerald dresses and shawls as red as the ubiquitous pomegranates now in season and sold from makeshift stalls along country roads.