Thread: Archive Latest News - Think Tank - 16/08/07 - 03/11/07

White House pleads for patience with Iraqi leaders
The White House Thursday pleaded for patience with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki's battered government after a new US report painted a grim picture of his achievements and prospects.

"This is a government that is learning, frankly, learning how to govern. And, no, it is not moving nearly as fast as everyone in Washington would like it to move," said spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

"We currently - I don't want to say 'we currently' - but we're standing behind the prime minister and the presidency council because they are trying, right now, in Baghdad, to move forward," Johndroe told reporters.

His comments came after US President George W. Bush, here on his Texas ranch, received a new Iraq assessment by the 16 agencies that make up the US intelligence community.

The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) described Iraq's leaders as "unable to govern effectively" and predicted they would struggle to take steps seen a critical to forge national unity in Iraq, and quell bloody sectarian violence.

Unless there is "a fundamental shift in factors driving Iraqi political and security developments," the political compromises needed for "sustained security, long-term political progress, and economic development are unlikely to emerge," the assessment said.

"The IC [intelligence community] assesses that the Iraqi government will become more precarious over the next six-to-12 months, because of criticism by other members of the major Shiite coalition," as well as Sunni and Kurdish parties, the new US intelligence estimate warned.

Maliki has, so far, failed to deliver any major pieces of legislation aimed at promoting national reconciliation, but Johndroe rebuffed any suggestion that it may be time for the prime minister to go.

"This government was voted in by the people of Iraq, and if the people of Iraq have concerns about what their government is doing, the people of Iraq will take care of it," he said.

Maliki's attempts to bridge Iraq's ethnic and sectarian divides have, so far, failed, with 17 of his 40-strong cabinet having resigned, and daily bloodshed taking its toll on Iraq's people.

"We know that there are significant challenges ahead, especially in the political area," said Johndroe. "It is frustrating, but it's not surprising that the political reconciliation is lagging behind the security improvements."

Johndroe noted that a key next step is the September-15 report from the White House - based partly on findings by the US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, and the US ambassador there, Ryan Crocker - to Congress.

But Bush is no more inclined, now, to heed calls to set a timetable for a withdrawal of at least some of the 160,000 US soldiers in Iraq, the spokesman told reporters.

"I think it's inappropriate for me to say from here, right now, what the president will or will not consider," he said. "I don't think that the president feels any differently about setting a specific timetable."

Powerful Republican senator for Virginia, John Warner, fresh from meetings with US military officials and Iraqi leaders, earlier called on Bush to announce on September 15 "the first step in the withdrawal of our forces."

"I appreciate the senator's comments. But we will wait until ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus return from Baghdad, and make their report," said Johndroe.

On Wednesday, two days after being briefed on the NIE, Bush leveled an unusually-harsh attack on critics of his Iraq strategy, telling a US veterans group that his political opponents were looking to betray US troops in combat.

"Our troops are seeing this progress that is being made on the ground. And as they take the initiative from the enemy, they have a question: will their elected leaders in Washington pull the rug out from under them just as they're gaining momentum, and changing the dynamic on the ground in Iraq?" he said.

White House pleads for patience with Iraqi leaders - Region - Middle East Times

More Iraqis flee since troop rise

BAGHDAD: The number of Iraqis fleeing their homes has soared since the American troop increase began in February, according to data from two humanitarian groups, accelerating the partition of the country into sectarian enclaves.

De****e some evidence that the troop buildup has improved security in certain areas, sectarian violence continues and American-led operations have brought new fighting, driving fearful Iraqis from their homes at much higher rates than before the tens of thousands of additional troops arrived, the studies show.

The data track what are known as internally displaced Iraqis: those who have been driven from their neighborhoods and seek refuge elsewhere in the country rather than fleeing across the border. The effect of this vast migration is to drain religiously mixed areas in the center of Iraq, sending Shiite refugees toward the overwhelmingly Shiite areas to the south and Sunnis toward majority Sunni regions to the west and north.

Though most displaced Iraqis say they would like to return, there is little prospect of their doing so. One Sunni Arab who had been driven out of the Baghdad neighborhood of southern Dora by Shiite snipers said she doubted that her family would ever return, buildup or no buildup.

"There is no way we would go back," said the woman, 26, who gave her name only as Aswaidi. "It is a city of ghosts. The only people left there are terrorists."

Statistics collected by one of the two humanitarian groups, the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization, indicate that the total number of internally displaced Iraqis has more than doubled, to 1.1 million from 499,000, since the buildup started in February.

Those figures are broadly consistent with data compiled independently by an office in the United Nations that specializes in tracking wide-scale dislocations. That office, the International Organization for Migration, found that in recent months the rate of displacement in Baghdad, where the buildup is focused, had increased by as much as a factor of 20, although part of that rise could have stemmed from improved monitoring of displaced Iraqis by the government in Baghdad, the capital.

The new findings suggest that while sectarian attacks have declined in some neighborhoods, the influx of troops and the intense fighting they have brought are at least partly responsible for what a report by the United Nations migration office calls the worst human displacement in Iraq's modern history.

The findings also indicate that the sectarian tension the troops were meant to defuse is still intense in many places in Iraq. Sixty-three percent of the Iraqis surveyed by the United Nations said they had fled their neighborhoods because of direct threats to their lives, and more than 25 percent because they had been forcibly removed from their homes.

The demographic shifts could favor those who would like to see Iraq partitioned into three semi-autonomous regions: a Shiite south and a Kurdish north sandwiching a Sunni territory.

Over all, the scale of this migration has put so much strain on Iraqi governmental and relief offices that some provinces have refused to register any more displaced people, or will accept only those whose families are originally from the area. But Rafiq Tschannen, chief of the Iraq mission for the migration office, said that in many cases, the ability of extended families to absorb displaced relatives was also stretched to the breaking point.

"It's a bleak picture," Tschannen said. "It is just steadily continuing in a bad direction, from bad to worse."

He also cautioned that reports of people going back to their homes were overstated. As the buildup began, the Iraqi government said that it would take measures to evict squatters from houses that were not theirs and make special efforts to bring the rightful owners back.

"They were reporting that people went back, but they didn't report that people left again," Tschannen said. He added that Iraqis "hear things are better, go back to collect remuneration and pick up an additional suitcase and leave again. It is not a permanent return in most cases."

American officials in Baghdad did not respond to a request for comment, but the national intelligence estimate released Thursday confirmed that Iraq continues to become more segregated through internal migration. "Population displacement resulting from sectarian violence continues," it found, "imposing burdens on provincial governments and some neighboring states."

Dr. Said Hakki, director of the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization, said that he had been surprised when his figures revealed that roughly 100,000 people a month were fleeing their homes during the buildup. Hakki said that he did not know why the rates were so high but added that some factors were obvious.

"It's fear," he said. "Lack of services. You see, if you have a security problem, you don't need a lot to frighten people."

It is clear that military operations, both by American troops and the Iraqi forces working with them as part of the buildup, have something to do with the rise in displacement, said Dana Graber Ladek, Iraq displacement spe******t for the migration organization's Iraq office.

"If a surge means that soldiers are on the streets patrolling to make sure there is no violence, that is one thing," Ladek said. "If a surge means military operations where there are attacks and bombings, then obviously that is going to create displacement."

But Ladek added that, in contrast to the first years of the conflict, when major American offensives were a main cause of displacement, the primary driving force had changed.

"Sectarian violence is the biggest driving factor — militias coming into a neighborhood and kicking all the Sunnis out, or insurgents driving all the Shias away," Ladek said.

Her conclusions mirrored the experiences of Iraqis who had fled their homes.

Aswaidi and her family were driven out of the Dora section of Baghdad five months ago when Shiite snipers opened fire on their Sunni neighborhood from nearby tower blocks, shooting through their windows "at all hours of day and night."

Returning covertly to check on the property in mid-August, she found Sunni insurgents occupying the building and neighboring homes, walking unchallenged through the deserted streets. Nearby, she claims, the same insurgents captured one of the Shiite snipers who drove the residents away, and claimed that he was a 16-year-old Iranian.

She now fears that her entire neighborhood will be taken over by Shiite militias like the Mahdi Army, which is loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr.

"I don't want them to take my town, but I think they will," Aswaidi said. "It will change from Sunni to Shia. The Americans can't stop it."

Shiites face similarly overwhelming odds. In Shualah, on the northern outskirts of Baghdad, 400 Shiite families now live in a makeshift refugee camp on wasteland commandeered by Sadr's followers.

In a sprawl of cinder block hovels and tin and bamboo-roofed shacks, families have stories of being expelled from their homes by Sunni insurgents.

Ali Edan fled Yusifiya, a Sunni insurgent haven south of Baghdad, when his uncle was killed. He has no intention of returning, even though American commanders claim Sunni sheiks there have begun cooperating with them. "It is still an unsafe area," said Edan.

Both humanitarian groups based their conclusions on information collected from the displaced Iraqis inside the country. The Red Crescent counted only displaced Iraqis who receive relief supplies, and the United Nations relied on data from an Iraqi ministry that closely tracks Iraqis who leave their homes and register for government services elsewhere.

Before the troop buildup, by far the most significant event causing the displacement of Iraqis was the bombing of a revered Shiite mosque in Samarra in February 2006. The bombing set off a spasm of sectarian killing, but the rate at which Iraqis left their homes leveled off toward the end of that year before accelerating again as the buildup began, the Red Crescent figures show.

The United Nations figures also include a little over a million people it says were displaced in the decades before the Samarra bombing, including the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. The Red Crescent data does not include them.

In Baghdad, the latest migration involves an enormously complex landscape in which some people flee one district even as others return to it.

In Ghazaliya, a mixed but Sunni-majority district of north Baghdad, one 30-year-old Shiite said his family was driven out by Sunni insurgents a year ago with just two hours notice to leave their home.

Five months ago, the troop buildup brought American soldiers and the Shiite-dominated Iraqi Army onto his street and his family returned. But even as it did, Sunni neighbors fled, knowing that the army had been infiltrated by Shiite militias.

"They are afraid, because the army has good relations with the Mahdi Army," said the 30-year-old man, who said he was too afraid to give his name. "My area used to have a lot of Sunni. Now most are Shia, because Shias expelled from other places have moved into the empty Sunni homes."

More Iraqis flee since troop rise - International Herald Tribune

US$9.6m mystery in Iraq bribes case
US officials call it the largest bribery case to come out of the Iraq war. But where did the US$9.6 million (HK$74.88 million) go?

Prosecutors say an army major from Texas who worked as a contracting officer took bribes from military contractors, having his wife and sister collect money on his behalf.

Investigators allege the three received US$9.6 million and expected to get another US$5.4 million from at least eight contractors for giving them favorable contracts.

Major John Cockerham, 41, of San Antonio, was charged with conspiracy, money-laundering and bribery. His wife, Melissa, 40, also of San Antonio, and his sister, Carolyn Blake, 44, of Sunnyvale, Texas, were charged with money-laundering and conspiracy. All three have pleaded not guilty.

With US$44 billion spent so far on the reconstruction of Iraq after the 2003 invasion, relatively few corruption cases have surfaced, and none rivals this one. The office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction has found cases of fraud that led to 13 arrests. Eight cases are awaiting trial, and 26 others are under investigation by the Justice Department.

The Cockerhams and Blake were arrested in late July after investigators raided the Cockerhams' house at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, and allegedly found evidence linking them to the bribery scheme.

Defense attorneys, however, say the Cockerhams and Blake are hard- working, church-going people.

The Cockerhams have confessed to taking money in exchange for the awarding of contracts, according to an affidavit from an army criminal investigator, but put the amount at a little more than US$1 million.

Blake told investigators the money was to be used to set up a church, according to the affidavit.

Investigators have so far recovered US$415,000 of the US$9.6 million allegedly paid out - US$240,000 from a safe-deposit box at Jordan National Bank and US$175,000 from a Bank of America account that Cockerham allegedly intended to draw funds on, using an ATM card.

With the rest of the money unaccounted for, some white-collar crime experts say, defense lawyers could present their case almost as if it were a murder trial without a body. By all accounts, the Cockerhams had not recently gone on any visible spending sprees.

Cockerham's attorney, Jimmy Parks, said his client was sent to Kuwait as a contracting officer ill-prepared and ill-equipped to handle the situation. "How can a guy that low on the totem pole be the only one sitting in the courtroom without anyone else?" he asked.

The Cockerhams and Blake were charged in a criminal complaint, but a grand jury could soon issue a formal indictment, according to sources close to the case. Cockerham's bribery charge, alone, carries up to a 15-year sentence.

The Standard - China's Business Newspaper

Saddam's cousin shot dead Shi'ite rebels, court told

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein's cousin, widely known as "Chemical Ali", shot dead nearly 20 men suspected of taking part in a Shi'ite uprising after the 1991 Gulf War, a court trying him for crimes against humanity heard on Thursday.

Ali Hassan al-Majeed, once one of the most feared men in Iraq, is on trial with 14 other defendants, most of them former military commanders, for their role in crushing the uprising in which the prosecution says up to 100,000 people were killed.

They face charges of crimes against humanity, which carry the death penalty. Majeed was sentenced to death earlier this year for masterminding a genocidal military campaign against Kurds in northern Iraq in 1988 that killed tens of thousands.

The Shi'ite rebellion in southern Iraq, and a simultaneous one in Kurdish areas, erupted spontaneously in early March 1991 after a U.S.-led international coalition routed Saddam's army in Kuwait the previous month.

When then U.S. President George Bush held back from invading Iraq, fearing that it would break up his carefully constructed coalition, Saddam swiftly counter-attacked against the rebels with tanks and helicopters.

Gasim Mohammed, then a soldier in the Iraqi navy's logistics department in the southern city of Basra, told the Iraqi High Tribunal in Baghdad he had seen Majeed execute several men after he was arrested on suspicion of involvement in the rebellion.

"The army arrested me. There were a bunch of us. They took us to the Industrial Institute building in Basra. I saw Ali Hassan al-Majeed with two women beside him.

"They made us stand in line and the two women started to ... point out the involved ones. Every man they selected was immediately shot dead by Majeed. I remember him shooting two or three men with his own pistol."

A second witness, Ali Hadi Jaber, a student at the time but now a policeman, said he was arrested with dozens of others and taken to a military detention facility in Basra.

"They lined us up and Ali Hassan al-Majeed began indiscriminately selecting some men and shooting them with a collapsible AK-47 right through their hearts.

"He shot dead 15 men. I saw that with my own eyes. He killed them all. They were from my town and I knew them."

Majeed is appealing the death sentence he received in the earlier trial. If it is rejected he could be executed before the latest trial is completed. Majeed, dubbed Chemical Ali for his use of poison gas against ethnic Kurds, was seen as Saddam's main enforcer, a man with a reputation for brutality who was used by the president to crush dissent.

Saddam's cousin shot dead Shi'ite rebels, court told

Three billion dinars for the communications sector in Maysan

The Chairman of the Reconstruction and Development Committee in the governorate of Maysan says City Council has budgeted three billion dinars for the communications sector within the of developing regions and accelerating reconstruction projects. The mobile telecom company Atheer will pay 1% of its profits into the Maysan budget.

Mohan Mahi explained, "The allocation of three billion for this sector will contribute to the establishment of good communications infrastructure in Maysan and increase telephone lines, particularly in districts and sub-districts which now complain of the absence or lack of service." He adds, "The project includes modern operator centers in the districts and sub-districts and creation of a wireless phone service for east and west marsh areas."

For his part, member of the Reconstruction and Development Committee in the Maysan Fadil Niimah said "The City Council has reached an agreement with Al Atheer Telecom Company to receive 1% of the company's profits from its work in Maysan." Niimah added, "We also agreed Al Atheer Company will allocate $50,000 per annum to support the sports club, the Information Center and the orphanage in Maysan."

There are two telecommunications companies working in the Maysan governorate, Al Atheer and Asia Cell; the City Council in Maysan had previously threatened to suspend their operations if they did not provide any support for the governorate's public budget. It was announced last Friday that MTC Atheer, Asia Cell and Kork Telecom had won bids for licenses for Iraq's national mobile phone network at an auction in Amman, Jordan, for $3.75 billion.

http://www.iraqdirectory.com/DisplayNews.aspx?id=4431

Iraq's Kurdish Region Struggles with Power Shortages

The electricity shortage in Iraq continues to plague the country. Power blackouts have become a telling symbol of the difficulties Iraq's government and the United States are having in improving life for ordinary Iraqis. But power plants being built in the Kurdish region could end the local electrical shortage and send power to the rest of the county. VOA's Brian Padden reports from Irbil in the heart of the Kurdish region of Iraq.

Irbil currently provides residents, free of charge, only about eight hours of electric power a day.

And when the power goes out, it is the job of Mohammad Qatar and other private generator operators to turn the lights back on.

Qatar runs a diesel generator that provides electricity for about 300 homes. An average household pays $60 a months for this service. Qatar says he expects to be in business for a long time to come.

He says if the government starts supporting the city full time, he will change jobs, but he does not see it happening anytime soon.

Qatar has reason to feel confident. In all of Iraq electricity output has been actually slightly lower this summer than last year.

Until recently, the energy needs of the Kurdish region have been ignored. Officials say during his reign, Saddam Hussein tried to control the region by making it dependent on Baghdad for power.

Hoshyar Siwaily, the minister of electricity for the region, says the new Iraqi government has been unable to meet its needs.

"Unfortunately, for the past few years or the last three years, our budget, this ministry's budget was part of the federal ministry of electricity's budget," he said. "They did not construct and build one single important project in the region."

The Kurdish regional government is now acting independently to increase electrical energy output through foreign assistance and private investment projects.

The U.S. government has financed the building of four electrical substations that can transmit significantly more power to both the Kurdish region and the Iraqi national grid. Each substation cost between $4 million to $5 million.

A company called Mass Jordon is building a $390 million power plant outside the city of Irbil. This facility is expected to start producing electricity later this year. Three other privately-owned power plants in the Kurdish region are also in various stages of a construction.

The Kurdish regional government will initially pay for the electricity produced with oil revenue, but says over time residents will have to start paying for this electricity. Minister Siwaily says eventually the region also expects to send power to the rest of Iraq.

"That's our aim," he said. "In fact to give electricity to the other parts of Iraq."

Minister Siwaily expects that by 2009 the region will produce enough energy to keep the lights on 24 hours a day.

http://www.iraqdirectory.com/DisplayNews.aspx?id=4423

Iraq supplies Jordan with 30 000 oil barrels daily

Iraq reiterated its commitment as to supplying Jordan with 30 000 oil barrels daily with a preferential price that decrease the international price by 18 Dollars. Finance Minister Baker Jabr Al Zubaidi said that Iraq government renewed its decision regarding supplying Jordan with a part of its oil needs and that it is studying the possibility of increasing the quantities in the future with lower prices.

The minister added that there is a possibility to transport crude oil to Jordan thru Baghdad by mean of land way that connects it to Amman and passing by Turaibil. He also signaled that the Cabinet decided to establish a pipeline that links between Iraq and Aqaba port and to set up exporting refineries thru Al-Aqaba towards Turkey and Syria.

http://www.iraqdirectory.com/DisplayNews.aspx?id=4422

Northern Iraq Eager for Korean Investment

Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, is known to us only as the base of the Zaytun Unit, a contingent of Korean troops. In fact, Irbil is a growing market in the Middle East. With reconstruction underway, this Kurdish autonomous region of Iraq has become a new economic battleground for multinational corporations.

The Korean government banned Koreans from traveling to Iraq after the beheading of Kim Sun-il in 2004, but since February it has been issuing limited permits for travel to Irbil.

Some 3,700 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq since 2003, but American businessmen are still rushing into the country. It's common to see young men in sunglasses speeding through the streets in Toyotas or Land Cruisers with the Stars and Stripes emblazoned on their doors. Some 400 multinationals from the U.S., Britain, Turkey, Dubai, and even Norway have arrived in Irbil. The hotel occupancy rate downtown exceeds 90 percent. A Lebanese enterprise is building a giant shopping mall in the center of town with an investment of some W1 trillion (US$1=W944).

Why is Irbil, a city with no serviceable factories, so popular? Oil. Iraqi Kurdistan sits on a huge oil field, estimated to hold six percent of the entire world's oil deposits and 40 percent of Iraq's oil reserves. In addition, security here is relatively better than it is in other regions of Iraq. Thus Irbil is functioning as an outpost for companies looking to advance into the other Iraqi regions in the future.

Local residents are very interested in Korean companies. Not long ago senior officials of the Kurdistan Regional Government invited a group of Koreans to dinner. During the dinner, the Korean soap "Stairway to Heaven" was playing on the TV. The tablecloth featured the logo of the Red Devils, supporters of the Korean national soccer squad, along with the word "Corea." "The Koreans are our friends," the Kurdish government officials stressed.

The successes of the Zaytun Unit have left a favorable impression on the Kurds, but the Korean business presence in the area is still negligible. The most Korean companies have done in the region is small-scale construction projects, including a government ho****al being built by the Korea International Cooperation Agency. "Within the Kurdistan Regional Government, the atmosphere is much more favorable to Korea than to Turkey, the U.S., Britain or China," said Sinjari, the chairman of KoriKurdi, a Korean-Iraqi joint venture. "The government is very regretful that Korean businesses have so little presence here."

http://www.iraqdirectory.com/DisplayNews.aspx?id=4421

This article was posted on another forum but I'm sure the original poster will not mind if it's posted here as well...bravery like this man's should be seen by everyone.


Iraqi Killed Saving U.S. Troops

August 23, 2007

An Iraqi man saved the lives of four U.S. Soldiers and eight civilians when he intercepted a suicide bomber during a Concerned Citizens meeting in the town of al-Arafia Aug. 18.

The incident occurred while Soldiers from 3rd Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment, were talking with members of the al-Arafia Concerned Citizens, a volunteer community group, at a member’s house.

"I was about 12 feet away when the bomber came around the corner," said Staff Sgt. Sean Kane, of Los Altos, Calif., acting platoon sergeant of Troop B, 3-1 Cav. "I was about to engage when he jumped in front of us and intercepted the bomber as he ran toward us. As he pushed him away, the bomb went off."

The citizen’s actions saved the lives of four U.S. Soldiers and eight civilians.

Kane felt the loss personally because he had met and interacted with his rescuer many times before the incident.

"He was high-spirited and really believed what the group (Concerned Citizens) was doing," Kane said. "I have no doubt the bomber was trying to kill American Soldiers. It was very calculated the way the bomber tried to do it. If he hadn’t intercepted him, there is no telling how bad it could have been."

Kane believes the citizen is a hero.

"He could have run behind us or away from us, but he made the decision to sacrifice himself to protect everyone. Having talked with his father, I was told that even if he would have known the outcome before hand, he wouldn’t have acted differently."

Capt. Brian Gilbert, of Boise, Idaho, the commander of Company D, 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, currently attached to 3-1 Cavalry, echoed Kane’s sentiment.

"I spoke with the father," Gilbert said. "He said he has no remorse in his son’s death because he died saving American Soldiers."

Later that night, the Concerned Citizens group contacted the local National Police director, Lt. Col. Samir, with the location of the al-Qaeda cell believed to be responsible for the attack. The National Police immediately conducted a raid that resulted in four arrests.

De****e the citizen’s death, Gilbert is encouraged by the cooperation between citizens and the Iraqi National Police.

"The effort of the Concerned Citizens group has made the area much safer," he said. "They are proud of who they are and their area, and want to get rid of the terrorists in their area."

Gilbert also praised the Iraqi National Police’s role in eliminating insurgents in the area.

"The cooperation between them and the Concerned Citizens has been key," Gilbert said. "The NP has done a great job of responding to the tips they have been given by the group."

Gilbert said he believes the area is improving because of the efforts of local citizens. The death, while unfortunate, demonstrated how close many in the area have become with the American Soldiers operating there.

"I consider many in the town friends, and I know they feel the same," Gilbert said. "This is a tough situation, but we’ll move on and try to prevent things like this from happening again. I’ve talked with his family and told them how brave their son was. This is a huge loss for everyone involved."

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Turkey and Iran Artilleries Shell Kurdistan Region

On August 24, at 12pm, Iran artillery shelled several areas of Kurdistan region including: Kodo, Bardunaz, Kani Qutaf, Kalkash and Chawi Hawa. So far the damages are unknown.

On the other hand, on August 24, at 10pm, Turkey artilleries shelled Khan Kir and Gali Pisakha mountains in Sindi near Turkey border. Turkey continues to shell the border areas in Kurdistan region under the pretext of fighting PKK and deployed a huge number of troops in Kurdistan region border.

At 4pm, on August 24, Militiant forces in Sidakan arrested 3 Iranian intelligence agents.

A close source told PUKmedia that these 3 Iranian intelligence agents came to Snin village in Sidakan area on Motorcycle so Militiant forces arrested them.

It is worth mentioning that during these days the clashes between Iranian forces and Militiant forces in Kurdistan region areas are persisting.

PUKmedia :: English - Turkey and Iran Artilleries Shell Kurdistan Region