About 440 people were killed and about 7,000 injured when the quake hit near the Iran-Iraq border on Sunday.

The government is scrambling to get aid to the worst-hit Kermanshah province, where hundreds of homes were destroyed.

President Hassan Rouhani, visiting the region, said state-built houses suffered more damage, and those responsible would be held accountable.

Temperatures in Kermanshah province fell close to freezing for the second night in succession.

Ali Gulani, 42, lives in the province’s badly-hit town of Qasr-e-Shirin, and told BBC Persian people were burning crates to try to stay warm.

“We are living in a tent and we don’t have enough food or water,” he said. “You can hear children crying, it’s too cold. They are holding on to their parents to warm themselves – it’s pretty bad.”

Mr Gulani said there were an average of three strong aftershocks an hour, provoking panic.

Close to 200 aftershocks have hit the region since the magnitude-7.3 earthquake on Sunday night. It was one of the strongest on earth this year, as well as the deadliest.

Mr Gulani said he understood aid had been despatched within the province, but that people in his town had not yet received help. Instead, people were having to trek to the other side of town to get water from a tank.

Iranian state TV said thousands of survivors had spent another night in makeshift camps or in the open.

“It is a very cold night… we need help. We need everything. The authorities should speed up their help,” one homeless young woman in Sarpol-e-Zahab, where most of the victims died, told Reuters news agency.

One aid agency said 70,000 people needed shelter and the UN said it was “ready to assist if required”.

While visiting the region on Tuesday, a national day of mourning, President Hassan Rouhani pointed out that many privately-built homes appeared to have been spared damage.

In Sarpol-e Zahab, he asked: “Who is to be blamed for this? Our engineers?” He said the government would hold accountable anyone found not to have upheld building standards.

Iranian state news agency Irna said 430 people had died in Iran alone. In the more sparsely populated areas across the border in Iraq, 10 people died and several hundred were injured.

Mansoureh Bagheri, an Iran-based official with the Red Crescent Society, told the BBC about 12,000 residential buildings had “totally collapsed”.

She said now that rescue operations had ended, the priority was getting people into shelters as quickly as possible, and that the delivery of aid was on track.

Maj Gen Mohammad Ali Jafari, head of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), said that the immediate needs were tents, water and food.

“Newly constructed buildings… held up well, but the old houses built with earth were totally destroyed,” he told state TV while visiting the affected region.

The Iranian Red Crescent said many areas lacked water and electricity and that aid supplies were being hampered by roads blocked by landslides. Iranian army helicopters are taking part in the relief effort.

About 30 Red Crescent teams are working in the earthquake zone, Irna reported.

The earthquake struck at 21:18 local time (18:18 GMT) on Sunday, about 30km (19 miles) south of Darbandikhan in Iraq, near the north-eastern border with Iran.

Tremors were felt as far away as Turkey, Israel and Kuwait.

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Source: BBC

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At least 129 people died in western Iran’s Kermanshah province, officials told state media.

Six more were reported dead in Iraq. The death toll is likely to rise.

The earthquake sparked panic, with fears of aftershocks sending residents out into the streets.

Mosques in the Iraqi capital Baghdad have been broadcasting prayers through loudspeakers.

Most of the victims were in the town of Sarpol-e Zahab, about 15km (10 miles) from the border, Iran’s emergency services chief, Pir Hossein Koolivand was quoted as saying on Iranian state television channel IRINN.

The town’s main hospital was severely damaged, leaving it struggling to treat hundreds of wounded, state TV reported.

Damage was reported in at least eight villages, the head of Iran’s Red Crescent Organisation, Morteza Salim, told the channel.

“Some other villages have suffered power cuts and their telecommunications system has also been disturbed,” he said.

Rescue teams were being hampered by landslides, Mr Koolivand said.

On the Iraqi side, the most extensive damage was in the town of Darbandikhan, 75km (47 miles) east of the city of Sulaimaniyah in the Kurdistan Region.

“The situation there is very critical,” Kurdish Health Minister Rekawt Hama Rasheed told Reuters news agency.

The quake hit 19 miles (30km) southwest of Halabja, near the northeastern border with Iran, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said.

The occurred at a depth of 33.9 km (21 miles), and tremors were felt in Turkey, Israel and Kuwait. Iran sits across major fault lines and is prone to frequent earthquakes.

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Source: BBC

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Kirkuk province’s governor, Rakan Said, said they were found at an airbase just outside the city.

Some of the victims were in civilian clothes but others were wearing the jumpsuits that IS used to dress people who were condemned to death.

Mr Said said the base had been “turned into an execution ground”.

General Mortada al-Luwaibi said the Iraqi military found the graves after local residents gave “witness accounts”.

Iraqi forces have discovered dozens of mass graves in areas that were once under IS control. Last year the Associated Press published a survey of mass graves that identified 72 sites. They could contain from 5,200 to more than 15,000 bodies, the news agency said.

Since then the military has retaken more ground from IS.

Hawija is 240km (150 miles) north of Baghdad and was retaken last month after being under IS control since 2013.

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Source: BBC

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Thousands of people fled the city ahead of the Iraqi advance.

The Iraqi military moved into Kirkuk three weeks after the Kurdistan Region held a controversial independence referendum.

They are aiming to retake areas under Kurdish control since Islamic State militants swept through the region.

Residents of Kurdish-controlled areas, including Kirkuk, overwhelmingly backed secession from Iraq in a 25 September vote.

While Kirkuk is outside Iraqi Kurdistan, Kurdish voters in the city were allowed to take part.

Iraq’s prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, had denounced the vote as unconstitutional. But the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) insisted it was legitimate.

US officials said they were “engaged with all parties in Iraq to de-escalate tension”.

Mr Abadi said in a statement on Monday that the operation in Kirkuk was necessary to “protect the unity of the country, which was in danger of partition” because of the referendum.

“We call upon all citizens to co-operate with our heroic armed forces, which are committed to our strict directives to protect civilians in the first place, and to impose security and order, and to protect state installations and institutions,” he added.

On Monday, the Iraqi military said its units had taken control of the K1 military base, the Baba Gurgur oil and gas field, and a state-owned oil company’s offices.

The government in Baghdad said the Peshmerga had withdrawn “without fighting”. However, clashes were reported to the south, and the sound of gunfire was caught by a BBC cameraman as a team filmed near a checkpoint.

By afternoon, as thousands of people fled the city fearing impending clashes between the two sides, Iraqi military vehicles were rolling into the heart of Kirkuk. A picture shared on social media appeared to show Iraqi forces sitting in the governor’s office.

Forces pulled down the Kurdish flag which had been flying alongside the national flag, according to Reuters.

Mr Abadi had ordered the flag to fly over all disputed territories.

The speed with which Iraqi forces reached the centre of the city has led the two main armed Kurdish parties to accuse the other of “betrayal”.

The Peshmerga General Command, which is led by President Massoud Barzani of the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), accused officials from Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) of aiding ” the plot against the people of Kurdistan”.

But the PUK have denied being part of ordering any withdrawal, saying dozens of their fighters had been killed and hurt, but noted “not even one KDP Peshmerga has been martyred as of yet in the fighting in Kirkuk”.

Meanwhile Turkey, which fears Kurdish independence in Iraq could lead to similar calls from its own Kurdish minority, praised Baghdad, saying it was “ready for any form of co-operation with the Iraqi government in order to end the PKK presence in Iraqi territory”.

The PKK – or Kurdistan Workers’ Party – is a Turkish-Kurdish rebel group which has been fighting for autonomy since the 1980s. It is considered a terrorist group by Turkey as well as by the EU and US.

Why is Kirkuk at the heart of this Kurdish crisis?

Kirkuk is an oil-rich province claimed by both the Kurds and the central government. It is thought to have a Kurdish majority, but its provincial capital has large Arab and Turkmen populations.

Image copyrightREUTERS

Kurdish Peshmerga forces took control of much of the province in 2014, when Islamic State (IS) militants swept across northern Iraq and the Iraq army collapsed.

The Iraqi parliament asked Mr Abadi to deploy troops to Kirkuk and other disputed areas after the referendum result was announced, but he said last week that he would accept them being governed by a “joint administration” and that he did not want an armed confrontation.

On Sunday, his cabinet accused the KRG of deploying non-Peshmerga fighters in Kirkuk, including members of the PKK, which it said was tantamount to a “declaration of war”. But KRG officials denied this.

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Source: BBC

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Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the head of the Kurdistan Regional Government of “treachery” for pressing ahead with the vote despite international opposition.

Massoud Barzani should now “give up on this adventure”, he said.

Mr Erdogan has previously threatened to cut a vital Kurdish oil pipeline and stop lorries crossing Turkey’s border.
Turkey fears that the emergence of an independent Kurdish state on its border will stoke separatist feeling in its own Kurdish minority.

The results of the referendum are yet to be declared, but a “yes” vote is expected.

Kurdish leaders say that would not automatically trigger a declaration of independence, but rather give them a mandate to start negotiations on secession with the central government in Baghdad and with neighbouring countries.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ruled out any such talks on Monday night, saying he would not discuss the referendum’s results because it was “unconstitutional”.

This was the strongest rhetoric yet from President Erdogan on the Kurdish referendum. He called it “treachery” and a “threat to national security”. Once again he threatened military or economic intervention, without elaborating.

Turkey is worried that independence might further Kurdish insurgency here and is concerned for ethnic Turkmen in the city of Kirkuk, which the Kurds want to be part of any future state. But there was a lot for a domestic audience – sabre-rattling to please nationalists at home.

Ankara has built a strong relationship with the Iraqi Kurds through an oil pipeline that feeds the Kurdish economy and Turkey’s energy needs. And the authorities in Irbil oppose the PKK Kurdish militant group, allowing Turkish military bases in northern Iraq. Mr Erdogan warned he could close the oil valves in Turkey – but it has not yet happened.

With Turkey’s notoriously abrasive president, the oratory sometimes does not actually translate into action.

In a speech on Tuesday, Mr Erdogan said he had expected “until the last moment” that Kurdistan Regional President Massoud Barzani would postpone the vote.

“This referendum decision, which has been taken without any consultation, is treachery,” he said.

“If Barzani and the Kurdish Regional Government do not go back on this mistake as soon as possible, they will go down in history with the shame of having dragged the region into an ethnic and sectarian war,” he warned.

Mr Erdogan said Turkey, which has long been the Kurdistan Region’s main link to the outside world, might now impose sanctions to persuade Mr Barzani’s administration to “give up on this adventure that can only have a dark end”.

“It will be over when we close the oil taps, all [their] revenues will vanish, and they will not be able to find food when our trucks stop going to northern Iraq,” he added.

Cross-border trade between the Kurdistan Region and Turkey was worth some $5bn (£3.7bn) in the first six months of 2017, according to Kurdish officials, while hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil flow daily through a pipeline from Kurdish-controlled oil fields to the Mediterranean via Turkish territory.

Iraqi soldiers also joined Turkish troops for military exercises in south-eastern Turkey on Monday, near the border with Iraq.
The US earlier said it was “deeply disappointed” that the Kurdistan Region held the referendum, but stressed that their “historic relationship” would not change.

The referendum was held in the three Iraqi provinces that make up the Kurdistan Region, as well as in adjoining disputed areas claimed by the Kurds and the Arab-led central government that are controlled by Kurdish Peshmerga forces.

The Kurdish news agency Rudaw reported that 72% of the 5.2 million Kurds and non-Kurds registered as resident in those areas had voted. Ballots were still being counted on Tuesday, with initial results expected by the end of the day.

Kurds are the fourth-largest ethnic group in the Middle East but they have never obtained a permanent nation state.
In Iraq, where they make up an estimated 15% to 20% of the population of 37 million, Kurds faced decades of repression before acquiring autonomy in 1991.

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Source: BBC

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IS deployed large numbers of suicide bombers in different parts of the northern Iraqi city but the affected areas were quickly brought under control, Iraqi officials say.

IS has now been squeezed into a square mile of territory in Mosul’s Old City.

It is the final phase of an Iraqi offensive to remove them from Mosul.

It is clear that these are the dying days of IS in Mosul, the BBC’s Orla Guerin reports from the edge of the Old City where she is moving with Iraqi forces.

The jihadists blew up the city’s landmark al-Nuri mosque last Wednesday. This has now given Iraqi forces a clear hand to move more swiftly against IS and they have certainly done so, our correspondent adds.

There were some 20 air strikes against the group on Sunday, and more overnight. Helicopter gunships pounded IS positions and extensive mortar fire was heard.

At least two IS counter-attacks were reported on Sunday night. The Baghdad-based Kurdish Shafaq news agency reported three attacks by the group in western Mosul – in Al-Tanak, Rajm Hadid and Al-Yarmouk districts.

Residents’ houses were set on fire, the agency said.

Eyewitness: Sally Becker, aid worker

I was just a couple of streets away from one of the IS counter-attacks.

We had around 20 bodies (Iraqi soldiers) here yesterday and many more injured. In fact the trauma stabilisation point (TSP) is full of soldiers right now. A brigadier arrived with a bullet in his neck yesterday afternoon and it was shortly after that everything went a bit crazy.

There were cars set alight on and the roads were closed.

According to sources here around 20 jihadists escaped from the Old City and popped up a couple of blocks from our TSP. In addition to this, the jihadist snipers have night vision goggles which meant the Iraqi army could only move very slowly.

It’s definitely calmed down a bit now although between about 5 and 7 this morning it was pretty full on.

The offensive against IS in Mosul, the group’s biggest and last urban stronghold in Iraq, was launched on 17 October 2016.

Thousands of Iraqi security forces, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, Sunni Arab tribesmen and Shia militiamen, assisted by US-led coalition warplanes and military advisers, are deployed.

The government announced the full “liberation” of eastern Mosul in January 2017, but the west of the city, with its narrow streets, has presented a more difficult challenge.

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Source: BBC

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The meeting is aimed at reaching a consensus with the parties before the exercise begins.

The General Secretaries of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the Conventions People’s Party (CPP) and the People’s National Convention (PNC) have requested an emergency meeting with the EC to outline modalities for the upcoming exercise.

The Director of Public Affairs at the EC, Christian Owusu Parry in an interview with Citi News disclosed that the Commission had already planned to organize an Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting and the date will be communicated in due course.

Regarding the procedures for registration, Mr. Owusu Parry indicated that nothing has changed.

He added that the parties will be made to present their agents at the various registration centers “so that they can observe the procedure.”

The opening of the voters register is to allow Ghanaians who turned 18 since the 2012 general elections and adults who could not register in previous registration exercises to register.

By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @osamidan

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