KurdistanObserver.com

So it came as a shock when hundreds of stone-throwing protesters took to the streets here on the anniversary today, beating back government guards to storm and destroy a museum dedicated to the memory of the Halabja attack. The violence, pitting furious locals against a much smaller force of armed security men, was the most serious popular challenge yet to the political parties that have ruled Kurdistan for the past 15 years.

Coming on the day the new Iraqi Parliament met for the first time, the episode was a reminder that the issues facing Iraq go well beyond fighting Sunni Arab insurgents and agreeing on cabinet ministers in Baghdad.

Although Kurdistan remains a relative oasis of stability in a country increasingly threatened by sectarian violence, the protests here — which left the renowned Halabja Monument a charred, smoking ruin — starkly illustrated those challenges even in Iraq's most peaceful region.

Many Kurds have grown angry at what they view as the corruption and tyranny of the two dominant political parties here. They accuse their regional government of stealing donations gathered to help survivors of the poison gas attack. The town's residents chose today to close off the town's main road and rally against government corruption. When government guards fired their weapons over the protesters' heads, the crowd went wild and attacked the monument.

The sudden and deliberate destruction of such a well-known symbol of Kurdish suffering clearly stunned officials with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which governs the eastern part of the Kurdish region. But many local people, including survivors of the 1988 attack — said the P.U.K. was to blame, having transformed the monument into an emblem of its own tyranny and greed.

"All the money given by foreign countries has been stolen," said Sarwat Aziz, 24, as he marched in a crowd of furious, chanting young men on their way to the museum. "After 18 years, Halabja is still full of debris from the war, we don't even have decent roads."

There have been several protests in recent months against both the P.U.K., led by Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani, and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, which runs western Kurdistan and is led by Massoud Barzani. But nothing has come close to the violence that erupted in Halabja today.

Apparently rattled by the prospect of publicity, party militia members twice tried to confiscate the cameras of a New York Times photographer who was leaving Halabja by car this evening, and only desisted after an appeal to high-ranking party officials.

At a hastily-arranged news conference in Halabja, Emad Ahmad, the acting regional prime minister and a P.U.K. official, said the party would "try to address any defects and corruption that exist within the administration." He said the demonstration had started peacefully only to be overtaken by outsiders, and he hinted that Islamic radicals might be to blame.

"There is a hand behind this, and we must cut off the hand," Mr. Ahmad said.

There is an Islamic opposition movement in Halabja, though there were no visible signs it had a role in organizing the demonstration.

By all appearances, the attack on the Halabja Monument was an authentic expression of popular rage. There were young and old in the crowd, men and women. Most seemed to view the museum — which was inaugurated in September 2003 at a ceremony attended by then Secretary of State Colin Powell — as the prop of an unjust government.

"That monument over there has become the main problem for Halabja," said Bakhtiar Ahmad, nodding at the museum, with its distinctive yellow crown-shaped roof. "All the foreign guests are taken there, not to the city."

Nearby, Tara Rahim, a quiet 19-year-old dressed in a neat black cloak and head scarf, said she had come both to honor her sister Zara, killed in the 1988 attack, and to stop the P.U.K. from taking advantage of the anniversary.

"Kurdish officials used Halabja to gather money," she said, standing with a group of eight other identically dressed young women. "Millions of dollars has been spent, but nothing has reached us."

The protest began at about 9 a.m. local time, when local people poured onto Halabja's main road and began setting fire to tires. Later, as the crowd gathered in size, protesters moved toward the monument and began hurling rocks at a big sign outside it that reads, in Kurdish, "No Baathists Allowed Here." The sign soon collapsed in pieces.

The 40-odd P.U.K. guards, gathered around the monument, began firing long machine gun bursts into the air. The sound echoed like thunderclaps against the towering wall of snow-capped mountains that forms the Iranian border, a few miles away.

That only enraged the crowd, and as the guards retreated in a panic, the protestors reached the monument and began smashing its windows and glass display cases with stones. Inside, they poured out a can of propane and set fire to it. Within minutes, flames were licking from the windows and a thick column of black smoke was twisting into the bright blue sky.

The security guards moved back toward the monument, and some began firing their weapons into the retreating crowd. One bullet sliced through the chest of Kurdistan Ahmed, a 17-year-old high school student, and he collapsed onto the grass, dying.

By noon, it was over. One protester was dead, six were wounded, and most of the P.U.K. guards had retreated to their compound on the edge of town, leaving the monument a blackened hulk of broken glass and shattered tiles.

At the hospital, anxious mothers searched for their sons. "I fled the gas attack with no shoes, and now I must come here to see if my relatives have been shot," cried Roshna Sidiq, 31, her face heavy with grief.

The violence made a surreal contrast with the peaceful mountain landscape, where shepherds in traditional Kurdish dress could be seen only a few hundred yards away, tending their sheep on fields as green as Eden.

Later, family members and friends gathered in a Halabja mosque to recite Koranic prayers over the dead youth's body, wrapped in a blanket on the floor. Many of them sobbed uncontrollably, repeating the boy's name again and again.

"Kurdistan," they wailed, clutching their faces in their hands. "Oh, my Kurdistan."

Yerevan Adham contributed reporting for this article.