SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq — The July 17 shooting in Erbil’s Huqqabaz restaurant, in which Turkish diplomat Osman Kose and two Kurdish citizens were killed, will haunt crisis-hit Iraqi Kurdistan for the coming years, despite the quick arrest of the alleged perpetrators.
Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, previously was described as the most stable part of Iraq, and accordingly becoming a hub for foreign diplomats as well as investors. This gun attack was the first major incident in Erbil since the 2005 suicide bombings, in which at least 60 Kurds were killed and 150 others were wounded. Now the city’s stability is again in question.
The "main perpetrator" in the July 17 attack, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) said, is Mazlum Dag, a 27-year-old Kurdish man from Diyarbakir, Turkey. His arrest was announced July 20, along with Muhammad Biskiz, whom the Erbil Security Directorate and the Kurdistan Counterterrorism Unit (Kurdistan CT) described as Dag's aide in “the terrorist shooting attack.”
Dag is the brother of Dersim Dag, the Turkish pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) deputy for Diyarbakir. HDP co-chairs Pervin Buldan and Sezai Temelli condemned the shooting in a statement, emphasizing their belief in peace and dialogue. They rejected any attempts to link the shooting to their party.
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