Deadly intra-Shiite violence rattles Iraq’s Kurds
Kurds are "deeply troubled by the new cycle of violence in Iraq" and look to be peacemakers.
The lethal protests pitting Iraq’s main Shiite factions against each other have prompted the country’s Kurds to play peacemaker, a high-wire balancing act that looks increasingly hard to sustain in the face of Iraq’s unremitting dysfunction.
The violence erupted Monday when powerful Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr announced that he was “retiring” from politics. This triggered a bloody confrontation between Iraqi security forces, including members of the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Units, and his supporters who stormed the presidential palace. The fighting left at least 23 people dead.
