In North Iraq, Sunni Arabs Drive Out Kurds

[ProSense]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/30/world/middleeast/30mosul.html?ei=5088&en=746c59bac7c159a8&ex=1338177600&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=all">In North Iraq, Sunni Arabs Drive Out Kurds

By EDWARD WONG
Published: May 30, 2007

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While the American military is trying to tamp down the vicious fighting between rival Arab sects in Baghdad, conflict between Arabs and Kurds is intensifying here, adding another dimension to Iraq’s civil war. Sunni Arab militants, reinforced by insurgents fleeing the new security plan in Baghdad, are trying to rid Mosul of its Kurdish population through violence and intimidation, Kurdish officials said.

Mosul, Iraq’s third largest city, with a population of 1.8 million, straddles the Tigris River on a grassy, windswept plain in the country’s north. It was recently estimated to be about a quarter Kurdish, but Sunni Arabs have already driven out at least 70,000 Kurds and virtually erased the Kurdish presence from the city’s western half, said Khasro Goran, the deputy governor of surrounding Nineveh Province and a Kurd.

The militants “view this as a Sunni-dominated town, and they view the Kurds as encroaching on Mosul,” said Col. Stephen Twitty, commander of the Fourth Brigade, First Cavalry Division, which is deployed in Nineveh. Some Kurdish and Christian enclaves remain on the east side, though their numbers are dwindling. Kurdish officials say the flight has accelerated in recent months, contributing to the wider ethnic and religious partitioning that is taking place all over Iraq.

Nineveh is Iraq’s most diverse province, with a dizzying array of ethnic and religious groups woven into an area about the size of Maryland. For centuries, Arabs, Kurds, Christians, Turkmens, Yezidis and Shabaks lived side by side in these verdant hills, going to the same schools, bartering in the same markets, even intermarrying on occasion.

But what took generations to build is starting to unravel in the shadow of the Sunni Arab insurgency, which is tapping into several wells of ethnic resentment.

Already embittered at the toppling of the Sunni Arab government of Saddam Hussein, insurgents here have been further enraged by their current political disenfranchisement, a result of their boycotting the 2005 elections. The main Kurdish coalition now holds 31 of 41 seats on the provincial council and all the top executive positions, even though Kurds make up only 35 percent of the province. Most Kurds are of the Sunni sect, but they have little in common with the Arabs.

Sunni Arabs have asked for new provincial elections and are growing frustrated that the Shiite- and Kurdish-dominated national government seems to be ignoring their requests.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/30/world/middleeast/30mosul.html?ei=5088&en=746c59bac7c159a8&ex=1338177600&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=all">more

The Kurds are Sunni Muslims, but they're not Arabs. Bush's invasion opened a Pandora's Box, and the surge is making the situation worse. From January: Use of Kurdish Troops In Baghdad Debated

Today: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1002685&mesg_id=1002685">"...a sign that the shadow of Sunni militancy there has started to fall over Arab countries nearby."

Bush doesn't care, he's in his own world: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1002885&mesg_id=1002885">Bush envisions U.S. presence in Iraq like S.Korea