Groups in Kirkuk stand at the crossroads of change

Shoppers walk through a dusty market in the northern Iraq city of Kirkuk. The city and outlying areas of the province sit on vast oil reserves and Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen and other minorities that live there are wrestling for political control.


Groups in Kirkuk stand at the crossroads of change
By Heath Druzin, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Wednesday, October 22, 2008

KIRKUK, Iraq — The night sky flickers a dull orange in this northern Iraq city as flares burn above the region’s abundant oil fields.

The electricity, too, flickers and market vendors sell blocks of ice as backup refrigeration.

While more than 10 percent of Iraq’s oil flows from Kirkuk and its environs, sewage flows in many of the city’s streets.

Violence has dipped so dramatically that American civilian government workers walk through certain Kirkuk markets without body armor, but locals still fret about the possibility of civil war in this poverty-stricken city of contrasts.

The city and the rest of Kirkuk province is a microcosm of Iraq, with Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen, and other groups wrestling for power.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=58295