26 May 2007 - 16:48
  • News ID: 105600

Captain Taashin of the Iraqi military police is sitting on a time bomb. Another car bomb exploded just 15 minutes ago in the Kurdish heart of the city. "OK," he says, "let"s get moving."

Car bombs going off almost every day now in Kirkuk, but the ticking time bomb is Kirkuk itself, a dusty, disputed city of 800,000 sitting on billions of barrels of oil, whose demography makes it a powder keg, the next flashpoint.

 

Last year, more than 300 killed in Kirkuk, 1,400 wounded. Radical Islamists groups have launched a bombing campaign. Their aim: to stoke tensions between Arabs and Kurds. Their plan is working.

 

"Arabs are sons of bitches," he says.

 

PIN/PBS.ORG

News ID 105600

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