Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2025 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Uncategorized

Ethnic Violence In Kurdistan Boils Over

Juan Cole 01/02/2004

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email

Ethnic Violence in Kurdistan Boils Over; 3 Dead on Thursday, 5 Dead on Wednesday

On Thursday, Kirkuk Police Chief Turhan Yusuf said, “Unknown attackers stabbed two Kurds to death and threw their bodies near a bridge in the centre of the city.” This act was presumably in revenge for the shooting of 3 Arabs by Kurdish militiamen on Wednesday (see below). His deputy, Shirzad Rifaat Qadir, reported that Kirkuk police killed an Arab man and wounded two others in an attempt to prevent them from attacking Kurds.

Al-Hayat said that the head of the general hospital in Kirkuk, Hashim Muhammad, announced that on Wednesday three Iraqis were killed and 31 wounded (6 of them gravely) by gunfire from Peshmerga Kurdish militiamen. The militiamen fired on Arab and Turkmen demonstrators, said to number about 1,000, protesting Kurdish demands that Kirkuk be absorbed into a Kurdish super-province. Demonstrator Ali Husain Muhammad, one of those wounded, said, “The reason the peshmerga opened fire is that the demonstrators began shouting slogans containing slurs against the Kurds . . .” Among the chants was “There is no god but God; Kurdistan is the enemy of God!” Arab and Turkmen political groupings demanded that the US civil administration open an investigation into the incident.

Kirkuk, with an estimated population of 730,000, is among Iraq’s 5 largest cities. It is a center of the oil industry, has light textiles, and is a local agricultural entrepot. The city has Kurds, Sunni Arabs, Sunni and Shiite Turkmen, and Chaldean and Assyrian Christians. Some 100,000 Kurds and Turkmen were expelled from the city in recent years by Saddam. Last spring, Preston Mendenhall in his War Diary from Iraq maintained that the city was comprised as of April 2003 of one third Arabs, one third Turkmen and one third Kurds. It is not clear, however, how many Kurds have returned to Kirkuk in the past 8 months, and how many Arabs have been quietly expelled south (the number is reported to be in the thousands).

Filed Under: Uncategorized

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Primary Sidebar

Support Independent Journalism

Click here to donate via PayPal.

Personal checks should be made out to Juan Cole and sent to me at:

Juan Cole
P. O. Box 4218,
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2548
USA
(Remember, make the checks out to “Juan Cole” or they can’t be cashed)

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter to have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.
Warning! Social media will not reliably deliver Informed Comment to you. They are shadowbanning news sites, especially if "controversial."
To see new IC posts, please sign up for our email Newsletter.

Social Media

Bluesky | Instagram

Popular

  • Top Things You Still Think You Know About Iran that are Not True
  • Why Trump Bombed Iran: Preserving US and Israeli Nuclear Supremacy in the Middle East
  • Colonial Logic, not Jewish Wisdom Guides Israel's Wars
  • Trump's contravention of the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal Led to Israel-Iran Escalation
  • Israel's Attacks have Exposed Iran's Weaknesses, but it is in Little Danger of Collapsing

Gaza Yet Stands


Juan Cole's New Ebook at Amazon. Click Here to Buy
__________________________

Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires



Click here to Buy Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam


Click here to Buy The Rubaiyat.
Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2025 All Rights Reserved