Abu Dhabi (WAM, agencies)
The UAE strongly condemned the attack that targeted a tourist area in the Dohuk Governorate in the Kurdistan region, north of the sisterly Republic of Iraq, which resulted in deaths and injuries.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation affirmed that the UAE expresses its strong condemnation of these criminal acts, and its permanent rejection of all forms of violence aimed at destabilizing security and stability and inconsistent with humanitarian values and principles.
The ministry expressed the UAE’s solidarity with all measures taken by brotherly Iraq to protect its sovereignty, security and stability, stressing the UAE’s keenness to establish security and stability in it.
The Ministry also expressed its sincere condolences and sympathy to the government and people of the sisterly Republic of Iraq and to the families and families of the victims of this heinous crime, and its wishes for a speedy recovery for all the injured. The attack was met with Arab and international condemnation, as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the League of Arab States, America and Germany, and other countries confirmed their condemnation of the attack that targeted Dohuk, which led to the death of a number of tourists.
Yesterday, with anger and sadness, Iraq mourned the victims of the attack, which killed 9 civilians in a tourist resort in Kurdistan.
At the airport of Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdistan region, a military plane was sent to transport the bodies of the victims to Baghdad. The nine coffins were transported by an ambulance, including the coffin of a small child, wrapped in the Iraqi flag and wreaths. Foreign Minister Fouad Hussein and regional president Nechirvan Barzani carried the small coffin towards the plane, before it took off to Baghdad.
At Baghdad International Airport, Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kazemi received the bodies, and the official funeral ceremony was presented, in the presence of a number of security leaders and officials, and he met the families of the victims, according to an official statement.
Yesterday, the Iraqi Prime Minister declared a national day of mourning, while popular anger escalated in Iraq over the tragedy that killed nine Iraqis and injured 23.
The majority of the victims are from the center and south of the country, heading to the mountainous regions of Kurdistan, to escape the heat.
In a modest house in Baghdad, Nour came to offer condolences on the death of his friend Abbas Alaa, and was waiting for the return of the family, who headed to the airport to retrieve the body of the 24-year-old engineer.
He said, “Abbas got married one week ago, and he was with his wife in Kurdistan to celebrate their honeymoon… It’s a shock to his friends and relatives, his first trip was on Tuesday and he was killed on Wednesday, and we can’t believe that.”
He continued, “He went to enjoy himself in northern Iraq and came back dead and his wife injured. This does not happen in any other country.”
Later, dozens of residents of the neighborhood where Abbas lives, buried his body in the white bride’s suit, in the presence of journalists from dozens of media outlets, before he was buried in the city of Najaf in the south of the country.
In addition, the Security Media Cell in the Iraqi Prime Ministry said yesterday that two gunmen opened fire with a Kalashnikov type rifle, killing five people and wounding three others, after attacking and burning a car they were traveling in in the Khalis district of Diyala Governorate, northeast of Bedad.
A security source also reported the killing of three soldiers, brothers and a child, in an armed attack in Baquba, Diyala Governorate. Meanwhile, an officer with the rank of colonel was wounded in an armed attack in western Baghdad.
The Iraqi Prime Minister, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Mustafa Al-Kazemi, affirmed yesterday, “working with the military leaders to rehabilitate all the capabilities of the Iraqi army, and directed to focus on training items and meeting the needs of the units for the advancement of this institution.”
He pointed out that his government supported the Iraqi army and the building of the military institution, which qualifies it to carry out its duties in protecting Iraq’s borders and the lives of citizens.
Al-Kazemi stressed, while presiding over a meeting that included security leaders and advanced cadres at the Ministry of Defense, “the importance of the national role played by our armed forces, and that the sacrifices they made over many years in defending the land of Iraq have contributed to building an Iraqi national doctrine that belongs to Iraq, and transcends any sectarian affiliation, ethnicity, or any sub-identity.
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