UNESCO Office for Iraq [43] The ad inistrative council of the oly Shrine of a li, the ir al u inin ibrary and the l ashif al hita fi tarikh al-Najaf (Details of the History of Najaf) ce Hasan al-Hakim at home with copies of his encyclopaedia. Four layers of muqarnas cells build up from the two corners, connect at the fth layer.
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Most of the displaced Shi'a are from the three major urban areas in the area, al-Nasiriyya, al-Amara, and Basra. They include some active rebels and army deserters, as well as their families. Estimates of the number of displaced persons in the marshes run as high as , However, some observers question whether the inhospitable terrain can support a quarter of a million residents and estimate the population at well below 50, Baghdad's policies toward the marshes and the rebel-held north have certain similarities.
Since the uprising, frequent military incursions in both areas have inflicted civilian casualties and displaced more people. Baghdad, itself squeezed by the U. A factor contributing to the reluctance of refugees and displaced persons to return home is their distrust of the amnesty declared in April by Iraq's ruling Revolutionary Command Council, pardoning citizens for all offenses except premeditated murder, violations of honor and theft.
While some of those who refuse to return might fear being legitimately charged with such offenses, a sizeable percentage of Iraqis have good reason to distrust any offer of amnesty from Baghdad. As the U. Special Rapporteur pointed out, "[A]llegations remain that the amnesties are Several refugees interviewed in Iran by MEW said they knew of Kurds who returned to Iraq in under an amnesty then in effect and were promptly arrested. A Kurdish schoolteacher from Suleimaniyya described why he did not intend to accept an amnesty this time:.
In , I lived in Halabja. During the chemical weapons attacks I hid in a shelter. One hundred and eighty-two of my relatives were killed.
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Afterward, I fled to Iran and stayed there for six months. When Saddam offered the Kurds an amnesty during the month of September, I decided to go home. But when I reached the border, the Iraqi authorities told me that I could not return to Halabja. They sent me instead to a place named Kurdechal in Irbil province, near the old village of the same name. About 6, of the returning Kurds were taken there. There was no housing for us at Kurdechal. I spent 25 days there sleeping under a nylon sheet.
I asked to leave, but they refused. Eventually I built a lean-to, then a little house, out of mud. For one year I could not leave the place. Finally, in the second year, they allowed me to go out, but I needed permission each time.
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I asked if I could go back to Halabja. The following month Iraq invaded Kuwait, and eight months later the schoolteacher found himself living again in a tent in a refugee camp in Iran. Rebel-held Northern Iraq. Kurdish rebels control a 16,square-mile area, roughly one-tenth of Iraq and four-fifths of the land claimed by Iraqi Kurds as their ancestral homeland. The zone includes two of Iraq's governorates Suleimaniyya and Dahuk , and much of a third Irbil.
Its current population of about three million inhabitants is almost entirely Kurdish, with small numbers of Turkmans and Christians Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Armenians. The area encompasses both the "security zone" demarcated by the Allies in April and a far larger area, including the cities of Suleimaniyya, Irbil and Dahuk, that extends south and east from the security zone. Until the May 19 elections, the area was governed by the Iraqi Kurdistan Front, a coalition of eight parties formed in The current boundaries of the zone have been relatively stable since October, when Iraqi forces established a fortified military line running northwest to southeast through the lowlands.
However, incidents of shelling by Iraqi troops since then have sent scores of thousands of refugees living near the fortified line fleeing into the rebel-controlled region. The population of the rebel-controlled zone falls into four basic categories:. Compared to the marshes, inhabitants of the rebel-held north enjoy a relative measure of protection, not to mention an unprecedented degree of political autonomy. The presence of Allied troops and fighter planes in neighboring Turkey, with their regular overflights of northern Iraq, have helped to reassure Kurds by offering the prospect of a swift military response should Saddam launch an offensive.
The Kurds are also better off than the marsh dwellers in terms of the level of humanitarian assistance they receive and the larger presence in their midst of staff from the U. The Kurds still face considerable danger and adversity: harsh winters, unmarked minefields, Iraqi shelling along the front line, embargo-related shortages of affordable food, fuel and medicine, and apparent acts of sabotage by Iraqi infiltrators.
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None of these hardships, however, looms as large as the Kurds' fear of what Saddam may do if the Allied forces retreat at the end of their current basing agreement with Turkey on June The group facing the harshest conditions are the more than , displaced persons, most of them from Kirkuk, who cannot or will not return to homes in Iraqi-controlled areas, and are now living in tent camps, in abandoned government buildings, in makeshift shelters, or in houses in government-built "model villages" see below that were abandoned by Kurds returning to their villages.
According to U. The obstruction now occurs mainly in the other direction, when civilians crossing into the rebel-held zone are searched for items deemed to violate Iraq's blockade of the zone. Soldiers routinely siphon off "excess" gasoline from civilian cars, and seize goods that appear to be newly bought. Fear, rather than physical barriers, is the main impediment to the return home of Kurds who are displaced from towns inside or near Iraqi-held areas.
Those who live near the front line are scared of shelling by Iraqi troops or skirmishes between Iraqi and Kurdish forces. According to one U. Another U. Civilians in the rebel-held zone who are trying to rebuild their lives in demolished villages face a distinct set of hardships. Of the some 4, Kurdish villages that Kurds say were demolished by the Baath regime during the Anfal see Introduction , a total of 1, are currently under reconstruction, according to Iraqi Kurdistan Front figures. Many who are returning to ancestral villages are Kurds who had been confined for years in "model villages" that were built by the regime to house Kurds from demolished villages.
According to a U. Senate staff report, these villages "were poorly constructed, had minimal sanitation and water, and provided few employment opportunities for the residents.
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Some, if not most, were surrounded by barbed wire, and Kurds could enter or leave only with difficulty. In the rebel-controlled zone, Kurds rebuilding homes in demolished villages probably outnumber the displaced population that cannot return to homes in or near Iraqi-controlled territory. While the UNHCR does not classify the returning villagers as "displaced," they continue to face many refugee-like difficulties, especially in a period of shortages and embargoes.
Living in tents or flimsy huts on the ruins of demolished homes, many spent the winter with inadequate heat and plumbing, far from medical care and regular food supplies. Some sought sturdier shelter in the cities during the winter, and returned to their villages only after the spring thaw. The returning villagers are among those at highest risk of stepping on mines laid by Iraq both along the border with Iran as well as deeper inside Iraq to hinder the pesh merga as well as Kurdish civilians who might try to return to the sites of their razed towns and villages.
A New York Times reporter who visited the area in April wrote:.
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No figures are available on the total mine casualties in the last year, Kurdish and relief agency medical officials said. But Dr. Delshad Kamal of the Suleimaniyya Teaching Hospital, one of three surgical hospitals in the Kurdish-controlled area, said the hospital treated about 15 new mine explosion casualties each week. Despite all of the villagers' day-to-day difficulties, the overriding concern for many is that government troops will return to the area and demolish their villages once again.
We're hoping they're afraid to move forward because of the Western coalition forces. Post-Uprising Order and Disorder. The contours of the post-uprising order in northern Iraq were established shortly after the uprising. On April 5, , two days after Iraqi troops recaptured the last city under Kurdish control, the U. Security Council adopted Resolution , which demanded that Iraq "immediately end" the repression of its civilian population, and allow "immediate access by international humanitarian organizations to all those in need of assistance in all parts of Iraq.
Air Force transport planes would begin flying over northern Iraq to drop supplies of food, blankets, clothing, tents, and other relief-related items near concentrations of displaced persons. But the surging exodus and Turkey's reluctance to host a massive influx of Kurdish refugees pressured the Allies to act more decisively.
On April 16, President Bush announced that a "security zone" would be established near the Turkish border and administered by U. The area would contain temporary tent camps to lure refugees back from Turkey and the perilous mountain areas near the border. To further reassure Kurds, President Bush ordered Iraqi troops to evacuate the "security zone" and to retreat at least 25 miles south of the Turkish border, and declared all of Iraq north of the 36th parallel to be off-limits to Iraqi aircraft.
Other developments in April enhanced Kurdish hopes for their future security. First, Kurdish leaders and Baghdad agreed on a tentative cease-fire and resumed long-stalled negotiations on limited autonomy. Second, Baghdad agreed to an extensive U. Under the terms of a memorandum of understanding signed on April 18, by Iraq and Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, the Secretary General's executive delegate for humanitarian affairs in Iraq, the U. The memorandum, which has been renewed and now expires on June 30, essentially restates in more consensual language the terms of Security Council Resolution It also deployed lightly armed guards whose mandate was to protect U.
The majority of these guards were stationed in the Kurdish cities of Suleimaniyya, Dahuk and Irbil; relatively few were sent to the south of the country. The Allies announced that they would keep a "residual force" in Turkey and a monitoring team in the town of Zakho in the "security zone. According to Pentagon spokesman Pete Williams, the mission of the force at Incirlik was "to stand by in the area in case there were problems in northern Iraq that required military action. Whatever the markers that the Allies laid down, their military pullback coincided with a general deterioration in the security situation, following two months of relative calm and the return of over one million refugees from Iran and Turkey.
With the negotiations in Baghdad bogging down and Kurds nervous about the Allied withdrawal, tensions began to mount.
On June 3, four Kurds and two Iraqi officials were killed when a demonstration turned violent in Dahuk, a city outside the security zone. Major clashes between Iraqi troops and Kurdish rebels erupted six weeks later around Suleimaniyya and Irbil. The fighting drove about 30, civilians in the Suleimaniyya region toward the Iranian border, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which said on July 22 that it had treated wounded persons in area hospitals.
The significance of torching the Iranian consulate in Najaf
Following the clashes, the army ceded control of Suleimaniyya and Irbil to the Kurds and pulled its forces back to the cities' outskirts. Both cities have since remained in Kurdish hands. During the second week of September, several dozen persons were killed or wounded in clashes around the city of Chamchamal, which lies near the front line between Iraqi and Kurdish forces, halfway between Suleimaniyya and Kirkuk.
It is not known what portion of the victims were civilians. Richard Naab, commander of the Allies' Military Coordination Center in Zakho, was quoted as saying that the clashes were not caused by any Iraqi provocation. The Kirkukis were reportedly preparing to organize a march toward their city, confronting the Iraqi checkpoints along the route. The operation clarified Baghdad's general strategy in the north. Advancing in these locations while retreating in others such as from Suleimaniyya in July , the army was fine-tuning a fortified military line to make it strategically strong and effective in sealing off the rebel-controlled area from the rest of the country.
The line bisected Iraqi Kurdistan from the Turkish border in the northwest to the Iranian border in the southeast. All of Iraq's known oil fields remained on the Iraqi side of the line, although large sections of the key oil-export trunkline, from Iraq to Turkey's Mediterranean coast, are in rebel hands. The shelling in October and subsequent clashes between Iraqi and Kurdish forces drove at least , civilians from their homes, according to the UNHCR, straining the agency's efforts to provide winterized shelter for up to , of those already displaced.
The Massacre of Iraqi Soldiers in Suleimaniyya.
On October 7, Kurdish guerrillas engaged in what was easily their worst atrocity since the uprising, executing at least 60 Iraqi army troops who had been captured during hand-to-hand fighting in Suleimaniyya.