Update - Ongoing democratic work after the Makhmur bomb

Update - Ongoing democratic work after the Makhmur bomb

We were recently at the hospital in Hewler to visit our dear friend Abdul Rahman Belaf. He was in great mood and eager about the work towards democracy. We admire him a lot.

Mayor Abdul Rahman Belaf and minister Taha Barwary, and in the background stands the authour Reidar Sabir.






"...fortunately the democratic process and work will not stop with this terrorist attack. And there are thousands of Abdul Rahman Belaf to replace the first Abdul Rahman [meaning himself]. Our work and democratic process will never stop."

A relative young guy who was wouded.

A badly wounded young guy. He also lost his brother.

This guy had got hit by splinter from the bomb in his stomache.


During the day there were two terrorist bomb attacks in Kirkuk also.

But the work goes on....

Kirkuk citadel

The Citadel in Kirkuk was built by the Medes, a general, 600 years BC. He conquered Israel and with him brought 3000 workers and finally built this citadel with his staff of engineers. It has however been renovated a couple of times so there are many statements of who built it. What you can see on these pictures are just a part of what is left today.





Inside this thing was a grave of some women that you could go in and watch if there were any interest.

These are the tombs of prophet Daniel and two others lying and resting.

The minaret

It is a huge landscape and the big part was demolished by Saddam.

Here we are eating dust like usual in Kirkuk.

Dog fight

Newroz

This is Newroz, the Kurdish New Year in Kirkuk. Some poor guys are celebrating the new Kurdish year but soon they will be back to their miserable lives without any future, as they see it at least, in that "god forgiven city" and get killed in some terrorist attack some day.

This tough guy you should argue with. Check out the tractor celebration in the background.

You have to melt in when you are in Kirkuk in all ways.

On the evening I was back in Hewler on the “Youth of The Year” party. Nine youths in different categories were selected for their special effort. One guy won a price for building the first Kurdish airplane. We have been visiting his workshop and you will see more of it here. It is like a movie entering his workshop in a poor quarter in a basement somewhere in Kurdistan.

Kurdish dance group



Keldeean/Assyrian dance group

Leaving Halabja

The day after we left Halabja towards to Ranye. Our first radio station is going to be extended with a second studio besides the culture center, which in practice means an IT center and language cources there.On our ways. However ths situation of Halabja is an disaster. The raods are all just mud. Just look at it.

Eating some fresh breakfast.

Piremegron the fantastic moountain outside Slemani city. One of the proudnesses of the people of Slemani. Just look at that landscape.

A village near Dukan city.

Ranye by night. Like all other cities here you have only electricity maximum 2-3 hours each day. The red light is a radio mast.



The radio station staff celebrated the New Kurdish Year Newroz by a trip with some nice views on the road. Besides the trip it meant a lot of preparations and lot of work.

Villages all around. This is a houce in Plenga village which means Lion Village.

Our destination high up in the mountain it was chilly but grat after a while with the most fresh air and springs you can imagine.

Toworrow it is time to go back to Hewler because we have a big activity there going on. So an early morning tomorrow. Today there was an bomb in Kirkuk again this time nobody had chance to detect it and 50 people got killed.

Rahimawa travel station

The travel station in Kirkuk, Rahimawa is soon rebuilt again. It was not many days ago since it was all blown up by terrorist car bombings. But people in Kirkuk do not give up and see this as an period that will end like it has done in the other cities in Kurdistan.

The new building can be seen rise in front of the police car. It is not much of a travel station but this is the reality of Kirkuk.

Kirkuk bomb

Today (yesterday since it is past midnight at sending this post) we traveled to Kirkuk. Soon before our arrival we got updated that we should go by another way because of car bomb explosions close to one of our location that was our destiny. We took another way and also that one was partly closed with trucks in front of the road. When we had parked our car we heard a big explosion and a chaos started.

Kurdish security forces immediately searched through our car. At let us continue to our location.

The smoke was immediately visible behind this mosque.

At our way to our location we saw the area of the explosion. American and Kurdish Iraqi security forces were there.








When we arrived we found out that these explosions were actually cars placed out by terrorist that the people had been suspect about and they had sent out an alarm. With this American forces blew up the cars that were strategically placed out to kill as many people as possible in a very crowded Kurdish area of Kirkuk. They are heroes for this action but it is first and most the people in Kirkuk that are the real heroes that has to live with this situation. It is mostly them selves that catch terrorists and reveal their networks and their car bombs. Last week a police car was circulating around one of our sensitive locations. The people in the area got suspicious and overmanned the lone police officer in his car. It showed out that the car was adapted and full with explosives. It was an Iraqi ING police officer. In the explosions of today there was again an adapted police car.



The americans leaving with their gigantic vehicles and this special truck after an special effort.

The inhabitants of this city have to decide about their destiny through a democratic election instead of letting terrorist plan their dark future. And this should be done as soon as possible before it is too late.

Travel Station

Yesterday I traveled to Slemani to pick up an oscilloscope. It is a necessary measurements instrument that I have been without for a time.

There are two garages in Kirkuk where you travel from, either by bus or taxi. One is for travels to Slemani and the other for travel to Hewler, the later is in Rahimawa quarter. I melt in among the citizens pretty good as long as I do not talk. So I went to the Slemani garage to take a cab.

You have to be careful and be ware for the signs, risk for abductions are very high. What the signs are you will learn with time and hopefully not too late. I sat down in the backseat of a cab to Slemani. The guy beside me had a Kalashnikov on the floor. I also saw that he was wearing “klash” which is Kurdish folklore shoes. I was feeling pretty safe then because he were probably Peshmerga in civil clothes, along with his colleagues. They went off at a Peshmerga headquarter when we were close to Slemani.

Last time I traveled from Kirkuk I traveled from Rahimawa station. There were no cabs so we had to wait for a half hour but at last we got one. One week ago on the 17:th February the Rahimawa travel station were blown up by terrorists. Approximated 12 persons were killed in the blast and 86 persons were injured. We passed by the Rahimawa travel center and it was not much left of it. It was a Kurdish area that in many peoples mind was the last place for a terrorist bomb.

Rahimawa travel station a week after the explosion. On the corner there was a building that is now totally gone. This was the crowdy central and there were cars and busses all around the street. It is now desert empty lik many other parts of the city.


In Slemani I met up with some colleagues for some late evening work. I traveled back to Kirkuk the day after early in the morning and the colleagues were going to another place.


This is the monument in honour of "Mama Risha". He was a legendary Peshmerga originating from Kirkuk.


This blog should have been posted yesterday but was delayed because of terrible internet in this area.

Orange sellout

This day was an ordinary offiice day. In the afternoon we traveled to Kirkuk.
There were two accidents on the way. First a truck had rammed a pickup. Everybody were busy picking up oranges. They also seem to miss the front tires, maybe they are in the pickup.






Later on we confronted an American road block. Always when the Americans are on the road it is blocked for all traffic. You have to stay one hundred meters behind them or even more far away, or it can go like this if not worse.









A half car can be seen on this picture. It was smashed accidently obviously and Iraqi Kurdish security forces are there along with the Americans that smashed the car. It seems like they want to justify the accident.

Later on we stayed at a popular restaurant road restaurant to rest and eat on our way. Just as we sat down to eat 50-60 man Kurdish security force entered the restaurant with a staff from some department. We did not get much rest but a pretty good security and great food.

Baba Gurgur in daylight

In Kirkuk there are security forces patrolling all the streets and carefully inspecting the streets and anything that can be an object of terrorism. The streets are less crowded and you do not see many parked cars because it is illegal beside in special garages. You wish that this had been done before the last 2 weeks 26 bombs, where as 6 bombs during the last days.