Sheikh Hatem Al-Taei, Mayor of Kirkuk, has published a preliminary list of 7 000 inhabitants that had been kidnapped and detained by the Barzanis’ Secret Police, Assayish, during the Kurdish occupation of the district.

If the prisoners’ families were to protest, then these prisoners would be sure to disappear.

Massoud Barzani’s PDK had annexed the Arab region of Kirkuk and had hoped to integrate it into a pseudo-Kurdistan under Israeli protection. The region has just been liberated by the Iraqi army. The occupation troops left without doing battle and more than 100 000 Kurdish colonels fled.

The victims were non-Kurdish inhabitants, principally Arabs, that might be Sunni or Christian but also even Turkoman.

Translation
Anoosha Boralessa