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Kurdish Security Forces Shield RegionFrom Iraq's Security Woes

The Kurdistan Regional Government's sophisticated intelligence network has ensured relative peace in contrast to the rest of Iraq.
Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers man a checkpoint in Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad June 29, 2011. Iraq's Kurds may be split on everything from party politics to how to manage their region's oil wealth, but most agree on one thing: They need U.S. troops to stay to help preserve the peace. More than eight years after the U.S. invasion, Iraqis are debating whether to ask American troops to stay on past a planned withdrawal, a sensitive question that is testing its fragile power-sharing government. Kurd

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq — At the last checkpoint on the road leading into the Iraqi Kurdish city of Erbil, a driver rolls down his window and a uniformed officer peers into the car.

“Are there Arabs onboard?” he asks. Kurds are waved through while Arab passengers are questioned, and almost all are told to get out of the car for further checks by the US-trained Kurdish security forces. 

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