On Tuesday, August 14th 2007, the Yezidis, one of the minorities in norhern Iraq, were the target of a bloody and ruthless massacre. This massacre took place in the city of Sinjar, in the Nineveh province.

Early Tuesday morning, several trucks - fully loaded with several tons of the much sophisticated and explosive substance of Trinitroluene - TNT - exploded. The explosive is very hard to retain and is used by very well equipped armies or terrorist regimes that cooperate with super powers.

The explosion was aimed at the civilians and is by far the most brutal and ruthless attack against civilians since the American invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The massacre took 520 lives and several hundreds were wounded. This act of terrorism made thousands of families homeless, as they got their homes blown away.

Nineveh-the future of the province

According to the constitution of Iraq, law number 118, paragraph IV (II), the Assyrian province of Nineveh is considered "a province which is not part of a current region." This means that in the Assyrian province of Nineveh, the jurisdiction of the occupational power is the one that should be followed.

The province of Nineveh is today the core area of the Assyrian triangle; the area between Nineveh, Turabdin and the province of Urmi. The Kurdish parties in northeastern Iraq want to change this demography. The do everything in their power to occupy and, against the Iraqi constitution, conquer the Assyrian province of Nineveh - a province rich of oil.

The Assyrian parties have petitioned, to the central government in Baghdad, that the province of Nineveh will be the base for The Assyrian Administrative Area. This would partly give the Assyrians living in the province of Nineveh a safe haven, and partly make way for the Assyrians in the rest of Iraq to be saved from the ethnic cleansing they are being subjected to.

All in all, this means that the issue of the future of the Assyrian province of Nineveh, is not in accordance with the illusion of the Kurdish parties - to conquer the province.

Many questions after the attack in Sinjar

Attacks of this kind against a minority which does not take part in the war, or struggle for power in Iraq, have lead to many questions.

What was the purpose of the attack? Who gained from the attack? Why the province of Nieneveh, and why now?

As usual, the accusations were made aginst the "demon" al-Qaida. It has, so to speak, become a standard procedure; to blame all acts of terrorism on the "demon" al-Qaida.

But nobody asks the question: what would al-Qaida gain in murdering the Yezidies?

Neither Shia nor Sunni muslims consider the Yezidies as enemies in Iraq, a country in civil war. This fact makes it easy to delete these groups from the list of suspects.

Power of protection

After the attack, several of the Kurdish parties and their militias have tried to gain authority to enter the province of Nineveh. The Yezidi Mahmoud Eido, minister in the Kurdish rule, was fast to publicly demand that Kurdish military forces would be allowed to enter the Nineveh province, in order to "protect" the population. The government in Baghdad has not even bothered to answer Eido's demand.

The Kurdish parties have also employed Assyrians in order to try to convince Assyrians to accept a Kurdish occupation of the Nineveh province. The Kurds have employed the Assyrian Sarkis Aghajan. He has, since he was hired, eagerly urged Assyrians to ask for a safe haven with the Kurdish parties.

All in all, the Kurdish parties from northeastern Iraq, through their military forces, for a long time in one way or another, have tried to include the Nineveh pro! vince, a province full of oil, into the area they already illegally occupy. All this in hope of making an illusion turn to reality.

Correlation between the act of terrorism and the protecting power

To be able to understand the background to this act of terrorism, one must relate it to a similar mechanism in our surroundings.

It has probably not remained an unknown fact to anyone how some criminal gangs in Sweden have put into system to blackmail business leaders and others in order to get money, as they on the other hand "offer" their protection against violence.

If the targeted business leaders, against all odds, would decline the offer of the criminal gangs, they will -- as a consequence of this -- receive a visit, which is also a threat and/or warnings. If they then choose not to obey the criminals' demands, the threats of bombing and shooting become reality. In Sweden, such acts are classified as criminal and felonious.

In order to answer the question:

"Who lies behind this inhumane act of terrorism?"

one first must answer the question:

"Who is offering his protection?"

Conclusion -- the Kurdish terror

The by far worst act of terrorism in Iraq was aimed at the Yezidis in Sinjar, a city situated in the Assyrian Nineveh province. Yezidies are not part of the Iraqi civil war. Yezidies are neither Muslims nor Christians. They have their own belief and are mainly living in the areas around the city of Sinjar in the province of Nineveh.

The groups that have something to gain in turning the Assyrian Nineveh province into an inferno, are the Kurdish parties and militias.

None of the armies included in the occupation forces wants to interfere in an insecure province, and therefore an offer from the Kurdi! sh force s to "establish" law and order in the province of Nineveh can seem tempting for the occupation power.

In order to urge such a decision, the Kurdish militia forces for the last two years committed acts of terrorism against the civilians in the province of Nineveh. The Kurdish terror is either disguised in Iraqi army uniforms, or as al-Qaida terrorists.

All in all the aim is to intensify and increase the violence in the Nineveh province, with the result of the situation becoming unbearable and forcing the occupation power to considering the option of letting the Kurdish militias invade Nineveh, with the mission of "protecting" the population.

This intrusion will not be limited in time. On the contrary, it is part of the Kurdish militias' plans. Much indicates that the goal is chasing away the Assyrians of Nineveh, in order to set their hands on the oil of the province.

The fact is that the kurdish militias have, during their time as a power factor in northeastern Iraq, been able to cleanse the area from minorities in general, and Assyrians in particular. The experience and the result of the Kurdish protection are unbelievably frightening. As a result of Kurdish terrorism, 58 Assyrian villages have been occupied. These cities are today populated by Kurds.

Many of the Assyrians who protested against the Kurdish terrorism were murdered without the ones responsible for law and security -- the Kurdish militia forces -- trying to find or prosecute the murderers. All in all Assyrians have a long experience of political terrorism from the Kurdish parties. What started as election fraud by the Kurdish parties in the Iraqi elections of 2005, has now developed into an ethnic cleansing of the Assyrians.

The Kurdish parties are trying to portray themselves as a democratic and lawful unit towards the international community. The representative for the Kurd! ish part ies in the US, Qubad Talabani, guaranteed in washingtonpost.com on September 6, 2007, a fair treatment of the religious minorities.

Nothing in Talabani's claim about protection for the religious minorities is a lie. The Kurdish parties are very careful in treating religiously oriented groups well. The Kurdish parites, and their militias in particular, attack the ethnically oriented groups. The Kurdish parties do not want to know of any other ethinical group than the Kurdish in northern Iraq.

If this distincition in the treatment of religiously versus ethnically oriented Assyrians is not being emphasised, this persecution and terrorism of ethnically conscious Assyrians will lead to the pressure on the Assyrians, from having been forced to be Christian Iraqis, to turn into Christian Kurds.

It is, therefore, important to understand the ulterior motive and the idea why the Kurdish parties, with Kurdish money, "approve of" Sarkis Aghan building churces worth 20 million dollars, such as the church/palace in which the Assyrian Patriarch Emmanuel Delly is moving into in Erbil.

This magnificent treatment forms a sharp contrast to the terror and violence regular Assyrians in the province of Nineveh are put to daily. It has turned their lives into a living hell on this earth.

EasternStar News Agency