South Korean forces leave Arbil

ARBIL / IraqiNews.com: A special ceremony will be held in Arbil on Wednesday marking the end of the mission of the South Korean forces stationed in the Iraqi Kurdistan region. The ceremony will start on Wednesday afternoon at Saad Abdullah hall in western Arbil with the attendance of Kurdish Prime Minister Negervan Barzani and a number of local and foreign officials. The commander of the South Korean troops had said last Monday that “the South Korean forces will leave the Iraqi Kurdistan region on December 5.” A total 3,566 South Korean troops had stationed in the Iraqi Kurdistan region in September 2004. 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 (S) 1