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For decades, Saddam Hussein's regime confiscated land from ethnic Kurds and Turkmen and gave it to Arab settlers. Now that the regime is gone, many Kurds forced out of the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk return to demand their land back. U.S. commanders warn the dispute could touch off a firestorm in the ethnically charged region. NPR's Ivan Watson reports.

Thousands of Shiite Muslims protest peacefully at the headquarters of U.S.-led forces in Baghdad, accusing them of doing little to stop a weekend of ethnic bloodshed and a recent attack on a Shiite cleric. In Washington, U.S. civil administrator Paul Bremer says troops face a "growing threat" of terrorism, but that security is "not as bad as people think it is." Hear NPR's Anne Garrels and Bremer.

In the last of a three-part series on Iraq's diverse ethnic and religious groups, NPR's Ivan Watson reports the Kurdish controlled northern part of the country remains stable. The two ruling Kurdish factions seeking control of their region have combined forces and are seeking effective ways to assimilate with the rest of the country.

In the second in a three-part series of how Iraq's diverse ethnic and religious groups are coping with the post-Saddam era, NPR's Nick Spicer looks at the Shia in the south of Iraq.

American soldiers fire on former Iraqi soldiers protesting outside the U.S. military headquarters in Baghdad, killing two and wounding two others, the U.S. military reports. U.S. forces are seeking to suppress opposition in a central Iraqi region where Sunni Muslims -- once loyal to Saddam Hussein -- are blamed for coordinating a series of attacks on American troops. In the first of a three-part series on Iraq's diverse ethnic and religious groups, NPR's Deborah Amos reports the main flashpoint of these attacks is an area in central Iraq known as the Sunni triangle.

In the third of a four-part National Geographic Radio Expedition, NPR's Alex Chadwick follows Wade Davis to Araouane, a caravan town at least 1,000 years old.

In the second of a four-part National Geographic Radio Expedition, NPR's Alex Chadwick follows anthropologist Wade Davis to Timbuktu, once a medieval intellectual center and a major center for trade.

An ethnobotanist travels into the Sahara Desert to research the vanishing customs of Timbuktu, once a medieval intellectual center. In the first of a four-part National Geographic Radio Expedition, NPR's Alex Chadwick follows Wade Davis for the start of a project to document disappearing cultures of the world.

U.S. civilian administrator Jay Garner expects an interim government to be running Iraq by the middle of May. The country holds its first election in the northern city of Mosul, where tribal and ethnic leaders elect a local city council and mayor who will run the city alongside the U.S. military. NPR's Guy Raz reports.

With Turkish troops poised to cross the border into northern Iraq, the Kurdish people of Iraq fear they'll become victims once again. They were gassed by Saddam Hussein's forces in 1988, and became the targets of the Iraqi military's "ethnic purification" campaign. In his commentary, NPR's Scott Simon worries the Kurds will have the most to lose in the current war.