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Controversial Kurdistan referendum

Thursday, 28 September 2017 9:10 AM [ Last Update: Thursday, 28 September 2017 9:12 AM ]

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These are the headlines we are tracking for you in this episode of On the News Line:

Controversial Kurdistan referendum

Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region finally held a referendum on secession from Iraq on Monday. Voting was held in Kurdistan’s three provinces as well as a number of disputed areas including the oil rich city of Kirkuk. The result of the vote is expected in the coming days. Kurdish leaders say an expected “yes” vote would give them a mandate to enter separation negotiations with Baghdad. The Kurdish president Massoud Barzani remains in office four years after his term expired. The regional government is struggling hard to make ends meet and Barzani is accused of failing to properly distribute wealth from oil revenues.

Civilian casualties from US airstrikes

Human Rights Watch in what could be a scathing report against the United States has accused Washington of lax intelligence relating to its deadly airstrikes in Syria. Its report says US-led strikes near the Daesh bastion of Raqa back in March killed at least 84 civilians, including dozens of children. The Human Rights Watch says its investigations showed that the US military had not taken proper care of what is described as the pattern-of-life analysis of the targeted areas, like a school and a marketplace that came under fire in broad daylight. These were only two instances of thousands of similar strikes that the US launched on Syria since the bombs began falling in 2014. And concerns are already rising over some view as the tragic scale of civilian casualties as a result of the American military involvement in Syria that appears to have intensified recently.

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