Gunmen Kill Family in Iraq
By VOA News
23 January 2009
Iraqi officials say gunmen have killed at least eight members of a Sunni Arab family in troubled Diyala province.
They say at least five women and a child were among those killed in the overnight attack in the town of Balad Ruz.
Diyala, in central Iraq, is considered one of the most dangerous areas of the country. Al-Qaida in Iraq and some insurgent groups operate in the province.
Meanwhile, Iraq and Turkey have announced plans to create a military command center in the northern Iraqi town of Irbil to combat Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq and to control the Turkish-Iraqi border.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and his Turkish counterpart, Ali Babacan, spoke of the command center at a news conference Friday following talks in Ankara. They said the United States would be a third party to the facility.
Zebari also is to meet Friday with Turkish President Abdullah Gul in Ankara.
Turkey has carried out bombing raids on suspected Kurdish rebel hideouts in northern Iraq in response to assaults by fighters from the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, on Turkish soldiers.
The United States and Iraq have warned the conflict could destabilize northern Iraq.
The PKK has been fighting for Kurdish autonomy in southeastern Turkey for nearly a quarter-century. At least 37,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
Turkey, the United States and the European Union classify the PKK as a terrorist group.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.
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