An Iraqi boy looks at pet birds at a local bird market Monday in Baghdad, Iraq. Iraqi and U.N. health officials said Monday a 15-year-old girl who died in northern Iraq this month was a victim of the deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus, the first confirmed case of the disease in the Middle East.

Raniya, Iraq ? Battered by rampant violence and political instability, a new threat in Iraq was confirmed Monday – the first case of the deadly bird flu virus in the Middle East.

A 15-year-old Kurdish girl who died this month had the deadly H5N1 strain, Iraq and U.N. health officials said. The discovery prompted a large-scale slaughter of domestic birds in the northern area where the teen died as the World Health Organization formed an emergency team to try to contain the disease’s spread.

“We regretfully announce that the first case of bird flu has appeared in Iraq,” Iraqi Health Minister Abdel Mutalib Mohammed told reporters.

World Health Organization officials confirmed the finding, though it was not immediately clear how the girl, Shangen Abdul Qader, who died Jan. 17 in the northern Kurdish town of Raniya, contracted the disease.

The prospect of a bird flu outbreak in Iraq is alarming because the country is gripped by armed insurgency and lacks the resources of other governments in the region. Government institutions, however, are most effective in the Kurdish-run area where the girl lived.

Health teams cordoned off areas in and around Raniya on Monday and began Iraq’s first bird slaughter.

Policeman Khalil Khudur said he led a team that killed 3,000 birds, mainly chickens and ducks, in Sarkathan, a village of about 600 homes four miles north of Raniya. Villagers and cars also were sprayed with chemicals to kill any trace of the disease.

But there were fears they might be too late.

Health officials are investigating the death of the girl’s uncle, who lived in the same house and showed symptoms similar to bird flu. At least two other people have been admitted to a hospital in Sulaimaniyah, 160 miles northeast of Baghdad, with similar symptoms.

An Iraqi boy looks at pet birds at a local bird market Monday in Baghdad, Iraq. Iraqi and U.N. health officials said Monday a 15-year-old girl who died in northern Iraq this month was a victim of the deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus, the first confirmed case of the disease in the Middle East.

President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, was briefed on efforts to protect Iraqis from the disease, according to al-Iraqiya TV.

The Iraqi case occurred just 60 miles from Turkey.

Health officials do not yet know how the Iraqi girl contracted the virus, but just north of Raniya is a reservoir used as a stopover by migratory birds from Turkey, where at least 21 cases of H5N1 have been recorded.

The disease has not proved as deadly in Turkey as in East Asia – where more than half of those infected have died – but U.N. experts warned that does not mean the virus was becoming less dangerous.

The girl’s mother rejected the bird flu findings, but acknowledged that a number of her chickens had mysteriously died before her daughter’s death.

“My daughter did not die from bird flu,” Fatima Abdullah, 50, told The Associated Press. “She did not like chickens nor had anything to do with them. She did not take care of these birds.”

Close to 1.6 million fowl had been culled so far in Turkey. Health experts said controlling an outbreak and undertaking a mass bird cull in Iraq would be difficult due the country’s more limited veterinary and monitoring infrastructure.