• Turkish Kurds make charcoal in Anatolia

    Serdar Bagis pitches wood to make charcoal near Kizilcahamam, Turkey on July 19, 2012.

    By Umit Bektas / Reuters

    Every year, in the early spring months, hundreds of Kurdish families migrate from eastern Turkey to the wooded areas of central Anatolia to earn money by making charcoal. Families live in makeshift tents and almost every member of these families takes part in the process.

    Kurdish people work to make charcoal.

    A woman douses burning wood during a charcoal making process.

    A boy plays around wood piles.

    A man covers a charcoal pile with nylon to stop it burning.

    A mother bathes her child in their makeshift tent.

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  • Kurdish protesters smash stores and police vehicle in northern Iraq

    Kamal Akrayi / EPA

    Kurdish Protesters clash with ant-riot police in front of Kurdistan Parliament building in Erbil, north of Baghdad, Iraq on 08 May 2012. Hundred rallied in front of the Kurdistan parliament against the article by Norwegian Kurdish expatriate writer Halmat Goran published on 02 May in a local magazine Chrpa. The article is said to be offensive to Islam and to Muslims.

    Safin Hamed / AFP - Getty Images

    Kurdish demonstrators destroy a store that sells alcohol during a protest denouncing a Kurdish magazine that published last week an article they say offended Islam, outside the Parliament building in the Kurdish regional capital Arbil.

    Safin Hamed / AFP - Getty Images

    Hundreds of Kurdish demonstrators surround a police vehicle as they take part in a protest denouncing a Kurdish magazine that published last week an article they say offended Islam, outside the Parliament building in the Kurdish regional capital Arbil on May 8.

    In other news from Iraq, Reuters reports that Interpol is calling for the arrest of fugitive Iraqi Vice-President Tareq al-Hashemi:

    Hashemi, a Sunni Muslim politician with the Iraqiya bloc, fled Baghdad in December when the Shi'ite-led government accused him of running death squads, a dispute that risked upsetting a delicate power-sharing agreement.

    The vice-president, who is in Istanbul, has denied he was involved in murdering six judges and other officials. He says the charges are politically motivated and has refused to stand trial in Baghdad.

    "My defense lawyer will present an appeal to Interpol in the next few days," Hashemi said in a statement. "I won't submit to pressure and blackmail."

    More images of Iraqi Kurdistan in PhotoBlog.

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  • The unseen war: Turkey bombs Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq

    By David R Arnott, NBC News

    With all that has been happening in Libya, Syria, Israel, Gaza and beyond these past few days, very little international attention has been focused on a renewal of the conflict between Turkey and PKK Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, which flared up on August 17 when the PKK attacked Turkish forces in the border region.

    Very few pictures have emerged of the subsequent bombing raids carried out by Turkish warplanes inside Iraqi territory, but these are some of the related images that have moved on the wires in recent days.

    Reuters

    Women mourn after shelling by Turkish warplanes that killed seven people in the northern town of Rania in Sulaimaniya province, Iraq, on August 22. The president of Iraq's Kurdish region on Monday condemned shelling by Turkish warplanes that killed seven Iraqis.

    Reuters

    A collapsed building is seen in Dahuk province, northern Iraq on August 20 after Turkish warplanes backed by heavy artillery struck Kurdish guerrilla targets.

    Bulent Kilic / AFP - Getty Images

    Turkish plain-clothes policemen hold a pro-Kurdish demonstrator during a protest against Turkish air strikes over northern Iraq, in Istanbul, Turkey, on August 21.

    Adem Altan / AFP - Getty Images

    A funeral procession follows the coffin of major Yavuz Basayar during a ceremony in Ankara, Turkey, on August 19. Kurdish rebels killed eight Turkish soldiers, including Basayar, and a village guard on August 17 in an ambush in the southeast of the country.

     

    The AP reports from ANKARA, Turkey:

    Turkey's military said Tuesday air strikes on suspected Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq this week have killed an estimated 90 to 100 guerrillas and warned that it would press ahead with offensives against the group both inside Turkey and across the border.

    The military said in a statement posted on its website that than 80 separatist rebels were injured in six days of cross-border air raids that began on Wednesday, hours after eight soldiers and a government-paid village guard were killed in an ambush by the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, near the border with Iraq. Continue reading.

  • Triple bombing in Kirkuk, northern Iraq

    Reuters

    Smoke rises as firefighters hose a building down after a bomb attack in Kirkuk, northern Iraq on Feb. 9. Three car bombs killed four people and wounded 20 others, police and hospital sources said.

    Ako Rasheed / Reuters

    An Iraqi soldier patrols the site of a bomb attack in Kirkuk, northern Iraq on Feb. 9. Three car bombs killed four people and wounded 20 others, police and hospital sources said.

    By David R Arnott, NBC News

    Car bombs ripped through the oil-rich Iraqi city of Kirkuk today, killing seven and wounding up to 80 people in the heart of a region of long-simmering ethnic tensions.

    Three blasts struck outside the headquarters of the Kurdish intelligence forces known as the Asayish, on a highway and near a gas station in southern Kirkuk. Full story.