Oil-producing company in Iraq

By Ali Helni, Imam el-Leithy, IOL Iraq Correspondents

KIRKUK, May 22 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – More than 40 days into the ouster of Saddam Hussein and the U.S forces rolling into, life in this northern oil-rich province has not yet been back to normal.

Tension still spreads into the air days after the end of infighting between Kurds and Arabs, the two ethnic groups along with Turkmen in the city on Monday, May 19.

The U.S. forces opened indiscriminate fire on the two sides. The death toll reached 90, including 70 Arabs, raising suspicions that the occupying powers cash in on such conflicts to incite more violence in the war-torn country.

“It is insecure here, leave the area now,” one of the gas sellers advised IOL reporters on Wednesday, May 21, accusing the new comers of turning the situation down the road to worse.

“They corrupt our life here. They triggered infighting with Arabs when they installed a former intelligence officer and a Baath member governor of the province,” a Kurdish resident told IslamOnline.net.

There is no movement in the streets and markets are closed; only gas sellers doting the sidelines of the road are seen waiting for their rare clients. In fact, it is a ghost city.

The civil administration of the province has not yet been formed, said Abdel-Rahman Sediq, a Kurdistan Islamic Party official.

He even complained that the U.S. and British occupying powers did not pay attention to the varied ethnic fabric of society here when they formed a transitional council entrusted to run daily affairs.

Inhabitants were also seething with anger as “Americans did not make good on their promises to boot Baathists out of sensitive posts,” in Kirkuk, said Seddiq, an engineer.

Sediq complained that Baathists “are still directors of the North Oil Company and even stole most of its files,” the main source of living for most of people here.

To add up to the bleak picture, looting and lawlessness still have a strong hand in Kirkuk and ethnic clashes still going on.

“clashes occur every night, Americans enjoy this,” said police officer Goma.

He said that many are still concerned over the lack of security, with police members still few in number and unarmed.

“Police are mostly formed of Kurds, but they are under control of the U.S. forces,” Goma added.

Fears of geographic changes raised among residents, who warned that annexing Kirkuk to other neighboring provinces will threaten its ethnic co-existence harmony.

The British Administrator in Iraq John Sawers was quoted as saying that “borders of northern Iraq might be reconsidered”.