Kurds Enjoy a Calmer Corner of Iraq
Truck drivers here say they are not worried about ambushes, shopkeepers report that security is not an issue and local residents shrug off questions about violence and kidnappings. “We have not closed our shutters at night in seven years,” said Abdul Wahid Hassan inside his shop filled with brand-new refrigerators, televisions and air conditioners. While cities like Baghdad and Falluja are riven by insurgency, this dusty, sprawling city is part of the other Iraq, a region that seldom appears in headlines and where life resembles something closer to normalcy. Full Story