Project to provide district in Arbil with electricity

ARBIL / IraqiNews.com: A local company on Wednesday started implementing a project to extend electricity cables between the power station in Kowieyh district in Arbil and its villages with a total cost of 640 million Iraqi dinars, according to the director of electricity department. “We hope to complete the project which started yesterday in six months with a total cost 640 million Iraqi dinars,” Louqman Howeez told IraqiNews.com. Arbil, also written Erbil or Irbil, is believed to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited in the world and is one of the largest cities in Iraq. The city lies eighty kilometers (fifty miles) east of Mosul. In 2005, its estimated population was 990,000 inhabitants. The city is the capital of the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region and the Kurdistan Regional Government Kurdistan RegionG). It hosts the headquarters of the Kurdistan region ministers and parliament. Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, only isolated, sporadic violence has hit Arbil, unlike many other areas of Iraq. Parallel bomb attacks against the Eid celebrations arranged by the Iraqi President Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Kurdistan RegionG President Massoud Barazani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) killed 109 people on February 1, 2004. Responsibility was claimed by the Islamist group Ansar al-Sunnah, and stated to be in solidarity with the Kurdish Islamist faction Ansar al-Islam. Another bombing on May 4, 2005 killed 60 civilians. Despite these bombings the population generally feels safe. SH (P) 1