Trench proposed around Kirkuk; Trucks banned from entering

U.S. Army troops with 25th Infantry Division and a Kurdish Iraqi policeman question local Arab construction workers in Kirkuk in May with the help of a translator needed by all 3.

U.S. and Iraqi officials Tuesday announced a ban on truck traffic into Kirkuk and proposed digging a trench around the northern city, where a series of bombs killed at least 76 people a day earlier.

The idea of encircling the city with a trench underscored fears that the violence in Baghdad and neighboring Diyala province will overtake the once-peaceful north as increased U.S. troop levels drive insurgents from the capital. Police in a village in Diyala said Tuesday that they suspected that Sunni Muslim militants chased out of the provincial capital of Baqubah were to blame for the slaying of 28 Shiite Muslims...

At a meeting in Kirkuk, officials announced the indefinite truck ban and the digging of the trench, which already had been planned on the southwestern and western edges of the city. There was no indication of when the project would be finished. Similar plans have been suggested for Baghdad but never have come to fruition.

Kurdish leaders are hoping to make Kirkuk part of the semiautonomous region of Kurdistan and could be driven to isolate the city. The Iraqi Constitution calls for a referendum this year on whether Kirkuk should join the region. Few expect it to take place as scheduled because of logistical issues, but that has not lessened the Kurds' desire to claim the city as their own.

Read the rest at the LA Times

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