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AP - Tue Jul 31, 3:00 PM ET This photograph provided by the Salahadeen Center shows children attending a summer class at the mosque and community center in Nashville, Tenn. in July 2007. Kurdish Pride, a small group of young Kurdish immigrants, have shocked the community with violent home invasions, assaults during school functions, rapes and an attempt on an officer's life. Many in the Kurdish community see their children's participation in the center as a way of steering them away from gang involvement. (AP Photo/Salahadeen Center, HO)

On the Net:

Kurdish Human Rights Watch: http://www.khrw.org

Kurdish gangs emerge in Nashville

By KRISTIN M. HALL, Associated Press Writer

Tue Jul 31, 1:44 PM ET

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A proud enclave of Kurds has lived in this city for decades, starting businesses and soccer leagues, holding down good jobs and blending into the immigrant neighborhoods south of town.

But now the Kurdish immigrant community has been shaken to see its young people joining a street gang that blends old-world customs and new-world thuggery. Police blame the gang for a string of rapes, assaults and home invasions.

The gang calls itself Kurdish Pride and is made up of 20 to 30 teenagers and young adults.

"We don't have the phenomenon anywhere else. This is a unique situation in Nashville," said Pary Karadaghi, president and chief executive of Kurdish Human Rights Watch, based in Fairfax, Va.

The gang members borrow from California gangster culture by adopting rap slang, scrawling "KP" graffiti on street signs, wearing gang colors and flashing hand signs in photos posted online.

They also put Kurdish flags on their cars, and use yellow — from the Kurdish Democratic Party banner — as their gang color. On their Web sites, they talk about Kurdish music and culture.

Unlike other gang members, most Kurdish Pride followers grew up in stable, working-class, two-parent homes, and many of their parents own successful businesses or work at universities, Nashville Detective Mark Anderson said.

The Kurds, most of whom are Sunni Muslim, come mainly from Turkey, Iraq and Iran but have their own language and culture. Kurdish immigrants have sought refuge in Nashville since the 1970s, creating the largest community of Kurds in an American city, with about 10,000 members, Karadaghi said. More Kurds fleeing persecution came to Nashville in the late '90s, and many attend the city's public schools.

Gang members say they formed Kurdish Pride in response to threats and harassment after the Sept. 11 attacks, Anderson said. But Anderson, who works their neighborhood, said he has never heard of any violence against the Kurds.

"They started out wanting to be a group of kids that would hang out and stick up for each other," Karadaghi said. "They feel they have to have a gang in order to survive."

At the Salahadeen Center, a mosque and community center, Ibrahim Ahmed says he is so worried about his son joining the gang that he is pulling him out of his public school.

"They say it's very hard. If you don't join them, they are not going to protect you," Ahmed said.

While the gang has been around since at least 2001, the intensity of its violence has escalated recently, Anderson said.

Nashville has seen a string of 10 home invasions targeting Hispanic immigrants since January. In one such case, a pregnant woman was raped by a group of attackers. Police charged a 17-year-old Kurd, Zana Noroly, with the rape, but he hanged himself in his jail cell before going to trial.

Last month police arrested four Kurdish Pride members on suspicion of trying to murder a park police officer who had stumbled upon a drug deal. One of them, Aso Nejad, 21, was already out on bail on charges he attacked a student at a high school graduation.

Members of the Kurdish community are hoping that summer school at a mosque and the recent start of a youth soccer group will keep others from joining the gang.

"We are not going to sit still and do nothing," said Kirmanj Gundi, a professor of educational administration at Tennessee State University. "They need to realize what they do is harming themselves and to a larger extent to the Kurdish community."

Karadaghi wants a discussion among Nashville police, school leaders and Kurds to try to figure out a solution.

"I'd be glad to talk to her," Anderson said.

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