Middle East

April 17, 2009
Iraq’s Fault Line
Source :new york times






In the far north of Iraq, a 300-mile fault line — ethnic, religious, political and linguistic — runs between Arabs and Kurds. This zone of instability winds from the Syrian border near Sinjar in the northwest, down to the Iranian border near Khanaqin and Mandali.
Overview: A Zone of Instability
Although violence levels have gone down here as all over Iraq, this region remains perhaps the most volatile, with unresolved rivalries between Arabs and Kurds in Nineveh, Kirkuk and Diyala Provinces. It is no coincidence that along this fault line there are lucrative oil reserves, strategic access points to Iraq’s neighbors and some of Iraq’s most fertile and well-watered land.
The ethnic and sectarian dynamic is complicated by a crowded checkerboard of Sunni, Shiite, Kurdish, Christian, Turkmen, Yazidi and Shebek towns. The United Nations is trying to help resolve claims to disputed lands, but there is no reliable census data after decades in which provincial boundaries were gerrymandered and populations displaced.
Politicians, diplomats and military commanders fear that the longstanding tensions — particularly Arab fears of Kurdish expansionism— can easily be exploited by Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and other extremist groups who thrive on instability. Kurds say they have the right to reclaim ancestral lands from which they were forcibly expelled by Saddam Hussein.
Sources: Map geography from the United Nations and Collins Bartholomew
Stephen Farrell, Campbell Robertson, Joe Burgess, Kevin Quealy and Archie Tse/The New York