Iraq’s Athletic Games charge armed group with attack Arbil players

BAGHDAD  / IraqiNews.com: The Secretary of the Central Federation for Iraq’s Athletic Games has charged a group of armed men with attacking the coaches and players of Iraq’s Athletic Team in their training camp in Arbil, the capitalof north Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, whilst the Director of Arbil Police had denied the report.   “A group of armed men in police uniform, estimated to comprise 25 persons, have attacked the coaches and players of Iraq’s Athletic Games Team in their camp in Arbil, with knives and steel weapons, for unknown reasons, seriously wounding the Algerian Coach, Nouriddin Tahin, the Team’s Technical Director and a number of other players, who were driving to a hospital in Arbil,” Hussein Jaber told IraqiNews.com news agency.   He said the family of the Algerian Coach, Nouriddin TAhin, had threatened to call the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, through the Algerian Foreign Ministry, to account the attackers.   Jaber, on his part, has demanded the Iraqi Ministry of Youth & Sports and the Iraqi Olympic Committee to pen an immediate investigation to reach the reason for the attack and account the attackers.   On his part, the Member of the Media Office of Arbil’s Sports Club, Ribin Ramzy, has denied the claims of the Hussein Jaber, saying that “the incident did not take place in Francois Hariry Club, but in a club for training the Athletic Games in Ain-Kawa township of Arbil Province.   “Jaber’s claims does not have any relationship with the truth, as the attack did not take place by the police, but it had been a fight among the players and the coaches themselves, due to the naming of the Iraqi Team to participate in the International Championship, scheduled to take place in South-Korea in the forthcoming few weeks,” Ramzy told IraqiNews.com.   He said that the fight took place between a number of the Iraqi Team’s players and their Coaches on one side and the Technical Director of the Iraqi Team, Nouridden Tahin on the other, in the background of selecting the Iraqi Team to participate in the said World Championship, thing that made some people of goodwill to interfere to put an end for the fight, but one of the players, called his relatives and the fight was turned to the use of white weapons, wounding the Algerian Coach and a number of players, who were driven to Arbil’s Emergency Hospital.”   “The attackers were arrested by one of Arbil’s police centers for investigation and to find the reasons for the attack,” he said.   Meanwhile, Arbil Police Director, Abdul-Khaleq Talaat, has denied that a security force had carried out an aggression or an attack against a group of players of the Iraqi Athletic Teams Federation.   Talaat told IraqiNews.com that “a clash took place among the players themselves, whilst two Arbil players had been in the venue of the attack with both men arrested by the police, whilst the security forces had managed to end the clash, without attacking anybody.” SKH (TF) 1060