Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Erbil Explosions: news from Facebook, KIU & Ak

Yesterday, instead of spending my evening at home marking papers, I called up a few friends to invite them to meet us (I was accompanied by a Canadian couch-surfing guest) in Ankawa for a bite to eat. The reply came back negative - their employers had asked that they not spend time in crowded entertainment venues due to the explosions (!!!). The only news of explosions I had received lately was from a student posting on Facebook saying that some idiot threw a grenade somewhere near Abu Shahab over the weekend (nobody was injured). It was a bit alarming, but also just hearsay.

However, after discovering that my expat friends (who work for more cautious employers than I) were being advised to stay home, I searched for news of the blast online. I came up with two articles, neither from the usual sources:

KIU - the Kurdistan Islamic Union website

Second explosion in Arbil
An explosion in (the Family Fun game city) happened, hopefully there is no injury.
The captain Ashti in Arbil Asaish said to KurdIU: this incident was the result of the explosion of a stun grenade aimed at making horror in the hearts of the inhabitants of Arbil.
A source has notified KurdIU that there are many forces, security around the city of the Games for the purpose of investigating the incident and the cause of the explosion.
Yesterday, an explosion in front of the Abu Shahab Restaurant 2 without a loss happened.


Although it is invaluable to know that the intent of the incident was to strike "horror in the hearts of the inhabitants of Arbil," I was not satisfied with only this source and searched further. AK News coverage was the only other source I could find, stating rather that the explosions were aimed at undermining security...

But I am still waiting to find out what, if anything, will be said to me and the other employees where I work! Guess the fastest way to find out what's going on is... Facebook?

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