Northern Iraq grows violent; hundreds of Iraqi police in Baghdad poisoned

[ProSense]

Northern Iraq grows increasingly violent

By YAHYA BARZANJI and LEE KEATH, Associated Press Writers 16 minutes ago

KIRKUK, Iraq - Bombings and shootings are increasing in Iraq's north as part of a power struggle between Arabs and Kurds. Car bombings in oil-rich Kirkuk grew fivefold last month and hundreds of Kurdish families have left the north's biggest city, Mosul, to escape the violence.

The bloodshed is not nearly on the scale of Baghdad, where thousands have died in recent months in a wave of sectarian killings and insurgent attacks. In the provinces where Mosul and Kirkuk are located, the toll has been several hundred during the summer.

But the creeping violence in the north — a region U.S. officials had hoped was getting more stable — underlines the difficulty in keeping all of Iraq's potential hotspots under control at once.

It also suggests growing strains in another of Iraq's sectarian divides. Baghdad has been suffering from violence between Sunni and Shiite death squads. In the north, the tensions are between Arabs and Kurds, who claim Kirkuk as part of their autonomous zone of Kurdistan to the north.

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Hundreds of Iraq police fall ill at meal

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer 15 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Hundreds of Iraqi policemen fell sick from poisoning Sunday at a base in southern Iraq after the evening meal breaking their daily Ramadan fast, and officials said they were investigating whether the poisoning was intentional.

An official with the Environment Ministry said 11 policemen had died. However, the governor of Wasit province — where the poisoning took place — denied any deaths, though he said some of the victims were in critical condition. There was no immediate explanation for the contradictory reports.

Some of the policemen began bleeding from the ears and nose after the meal, said Jassim al-Atwan, an inspector for the Environment Ministry, who was serving as a liaison in the investigation between the Health Ministry and the base, located in the town of Numaniyah.

"Hundreds of soldiers were poisoned after taking food and water in the iftar," Wasit Gov. Hamad al-Latif told the Associated Press, referring to the meal that breaks the sunrise-to-sunset fast during the Islamic holy month. "Investigations are under way to determine the cause."

Samples of the food and water were being tested "to determine the substance in them" and will be sent to Baghdad for further tests, al-Latif said.

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[Divernan]

1. So was Halliburton providing the food and water?

We know they've already provided contaminated water to American troops.

[lonestarnot]

2. Terrible, terrible, terrible.

[Kagemusha]

3. Context: The US shifted troops from the N and W to Bagdhad

to crack down on violence there that threatened to submerge the Iraqi capitol in blood.

Well, the capitol is merely floating on blood, not submerged by it, and, following the path of lesser resistance, the insurgency is making more trouble in other places now.

[wryter2000]

4. Ye gods

I want Bush on trial for war crimes. I swear.

[TheCowsCameHome]

5. Tell me again how well things are going over there.

I still won't believe it.

[ProSense]

6. Gunmen kill brother of Iraq's VP

Gunmen kill brother of Iraq's VP

By Mariam Karouny
1 hour, 25 minutes ago

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen in camouflage uniforms killed the brother of Iraq's Sunni Arab Vice President Tareq al -Hashemi on Monday, drawing swift condemnation from across Iraq's political divide and senior U.S. officials.

Parliament's biggest Sunni political group blamed militias and warned it could jeopardize Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's plan to reconcile warring Shi'ite and Sunni sects.

Lieutenant General Amer al-Hashemi, a senior Defense Ministry adviser, was the third of Hashemi's siblings killed since April. Gunmen also killed his sister and another brother.

Hashemi is one of the most senior Sunni Arabs in Maliki's Shi'ite-led national unity government, which is struggling to contain the Sunni-Shi'ite violence convulsing the country and, by some estimates, killing up to 100 people a day.

A car bomb exploded in a busy Baghdad market at dusk as people were heading home to break their daylong Ramadan fast, killing 13 and wounding 46, police said. The U.S. military has said bombings in Baghdad are at an all-time high.

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