Amna Suraka

Amna Suraka in Sulaimaniyah was a Ba'ath Party govennment office used by Saddam Hussein to direct military operations against both the Iranians and Iraqi Kurds during the Iran-Iraq war. In 1991 it was overrun by Kurdish fighters (I remember watching this on the news as a kid), and most of the buildings complete with bullet and bomb holes, military hardware etc were left where they stand. The interrogation/torture center in the building next door has been turned into an impressive albeit depressing museum documenting how information and confessions were 'obtained' by Kurdish (mostly) civilians. Many, many thousands of people were killed - in some truly hideous ways - here.

now nice place but before it was tragically