While straining under occupation, Iraq faces a possible Turkish invasion in the north, writes Nermeen Al-Mufti
US occupation forces shelled Sadr City in north Baghdad, killing and wounding 49 people. A US statement claimed the victims were "insurgents" who attacked US forces in the past two years. Iraqi police sources, however, said the dead, who included women and children, were ordinary civilians.
Television networks aired pictures of children under the age of four among the casualties. In his weekly meeting with David Petraeus, commander of US forces in Iraq, Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki denounced the operation, expressing shock at the loss of civilian life. The Americans promised to investigate the incident.
Signs of fracture have once again appeared within Shia ranks. The Sadr group froze its agreement with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) after SCIRI leader Ammar Al-Hakim called for federalism in the north and centre of the country. A curfew was declared in Karbala, 100 kilometres south of Baghdad following exchanges of fire. In city council meetings, pro-Iranian and anti-Iranian officials were once again at loggerheads over claims that Iran was trying to control local politics. Five members of the Sadr Mahdi Army militia were killed in clashes with police in the city.
As Turkey contemplated an incursion into Iraqi territories, the Iraqi National Assembly scrambled to defuse the situation. It authorised the Iraqi government to take any necessary measures to resolve the crisis while calling on Turkish authorities to rethink their policies. A statement by the Iraqi parliament termed the decision by the Turkish parliament to sanction military operations inside Iraq "unhelpful to relations".
After issuing the statement, the parliament went into closed session during which the foreign, defence, and national security ministers briefed parliamentarians on current developments. According to sources within parliament, Iraq's defence minister admitted that the Iraqi army was not a match for Turkey. The defence minister disclosed that Turkey has been keeping advance posts inside Iraq for some time.
Tensions between the central government and Kurds are on the rise. Sami Al-Askari, adviser to Al-Maliki, lashed out at Kurds for calling on the Iraqi army to take action. "The Kurds only remember that we have a central government at times of crisis. It is only in such times that they sing the praises of national solidarity and Iraqi sovereignty."
Abdul-Aziz Al-Hakim, leader of the (Shia) Iraqi Alliance Bloc, called on the Kurdish administration to clamp down on terror groups stationed in the north. Turkomen official Fawzi Akram said that he opposed any foreign intervention in the country, adding that Iraq should not allow terrorists free movement in the north.
Kurds reacted with fury. "The Iraqi army is incapable of protecting two streets in Baghdad, but the peshmerga (the Kurdish militia) is capable of defending the north," a Kurdish official said. Masoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish Regional Government, held a news conference with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and said that the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) must not be described as a terror group.
To make things worse, the PKK struck again. Its fighters killed 17 Turkish soldiers in an attack near the Turkey-Iraq border. Turkey said that the assailants came from bases in northern Iraq.
Talabani and Barzani meanwhile dismissed Turkish demands that Iraq hand over PKK leaders. In a joint news conference in Irbil, the two called for a peaceful solution to the crisis. Talabani, however, admitted that PKK fighters would have to lay down their weapons or leave the country. Talabani denied that Maliki signed an agreement in Ankara last month allowing the Turkish army to cross Iraqi borders.
For his part, Barzani said that the Kurdish administration was not taking sides in the dispute between the PKK and Ankara, expressing hope that no further acts of hostility would be committed. "If both sides insist on fighting, we wouldn't take part in the hostilities, but we intend to defend ourselves at all times," Barzani said.
Turkey doesn't seem in a mood to talk, but the Iraqis are not giving up. "The Erdogan government told Baghdad that it wasn't willing to receive a delegation at the moment," Mahmoud Othman, a leading Kurdish figure, told reporters. However, Vice-president Tariq Al-Hashimi flew to Ankara for talks. And a delegation led by National Security Minister Shirwan Al-Waeli is due to arrive in Turkey within days.
In Kirkuk, demonstrators marched in protest against Turkish threats, waiving Kurdish and PKK flags and carrying pictures of imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/868/re71.htm
vendredi 26 octobre 2007
jeudi 25 octobre 2007
U.N. challenges U.S. on illegal air strikes in Iraq
By Nicolas J. S. Davies Online Journal Contributing Writer
Oct 23, 2007
Just as U.S. air operations over Iraq have reached their highest level since the destruction of Fallujah in November 2004, with as many as 70 close air support missions flown on many days since October 1, a new Human Rights Report published by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq has challenged the United States to stop killing civilians in illegal air strikes.
The Human Rights Report for the second quarter of 2007 was long overdue, and was finally published on October 11. The report explains that it was modified following discussions with U.S. and Iraqi occupation authorities, and this appears to account for the long delay in its publication.
The report makes it clear that U.S. air strikes in densely populated civilian areas are violations of international human rights law. A footnote to the section on "MNF military operations and the killing of civilians" explains, "Customary international humanitarian law demands that, as much as possible, military objectives must not be located within areas densely populated by civilians. The presence of individual combatants among a great number of civilians does not alter the civilian character of an area."
UNAMI demands "that all credible allegations of unlawful killings by MNF (Multi National Force) forces be thoroughly, promptly and impartially investigated, and appropriate action taken against military personnel found to have used excessive or indiscriminate force" and adds that, "The initiation of investigation into such incidents, as well as their findings, should be made public."
The UNAMI report provides the following details of 88 Iraqi civilians killed by air strikes, 15 civilians killed "in the context of raid and search operations" by U.S. ground forces and several incidents of torture and extra-judicial execution by members of Iraqi auxiliary forces under overall U.S. command. UNAMI investigated these incidents because a relative, a journalist or a local official brought each one to its attention. Without doubt, the U.S. Department of Defense is aware of many more killings of civilians by air strikes and ground operations, hence UNAMI's urgent demand for full public disclosure and investigation of all such killings.
March 11 - Nine civilians in 5 villages near Ba'quba killed by U.S. air strikes.
March 13 & 14 - Twelve Palestinians detained by the Interior Ministry at al-Baladiyat and tortured with electric shocks to sensitive parts of the body, forcing metal sticks down the throat, and rape and other sexual assault with metal objects.
March 15 - Two civilians killed in Dulu'iya by a U.S. air strike.
March 29 - A 14-year-old boy and three other family members killed in Mosul by a U.S. raid on the home of Zeyour Mohamed Khalil.
March 30 - Sixteen civilians killed in Sadr City by U.S. air strikes.
April 2 - Six civilians killed in U.S. raids on the homes of Bashar Mahfoudh and Walid al-Ahmadi near Mosul.
April 3 - Twenty-seven civilians killed in Khaldiya, near Ramadi, by U.S. air strikes.
April 12 - Three civilians killed in southern Haditha in a house raid by U.S. forces.
April 26 - U.S. air strikes kill four civilians in Sadr City and four more in Taji.
April 29 - Al-Kesra, Baghdad, five men found dead after being detained by Iraqi Army in al-Sifina.
April 30 - Three civilians killed by an air strike in Basra.
May 3 - Hay al-Amel, Baghdad, 16 people detained and killed by Interior Ministry Public Order Forces.
May 4th - Al-Dubbat, Baghdad, 14 civilians arrested and then shot dead by Iraqi security forces.
May 5 - Seven civilians killed by a U.S. air strike east of Baghdad.
May 5 - Hay al-Rissala, Baghdad, men guarding a mosque detained and executed by Iraqi security forces.
May 6 - One civilian killed by a U.S. air strike in Sadr City.
May 8 - Seven children killed by a U.S. helicopter attack on an elementary school in Diyala province.
May 26 - Eight civilians in Basra killed by air strikes.
May 29 - Four prisoners executed by the Kurdistan Regional Government after testifying to the death under torture of Fahmi Ismail Abu Bakr in 2005.
June 6 - Yassin Farhan and his son Sarmad killed by U.S. troops in a house raid in Baghdad.
April-June - Seventy-three percent of KRG detainees interviewed by UNAMI reported being victims of torture.
The recent increase in U.S. air operations in Iraq has brought a spate of reports of more such incidents. On the day the UNAMI report was released, six women, nine children and 19 men were killed in air strikes near Lake Tharthar, north of Baghdad. The Centcom press office immediately declared that the 19 men were "terrorists" but similar claims regarding previous air strikes have been contradicted by local residents and officials, and they beg the question as to how you know that 19 men were "terrorists" after you've blown them off the face of the earth.
An air strike on September 25 in Mussayyib, 30 miles south of Baghdad, killed five women and four children; and one on September 28 on the al-Saha district of Baghdad killed seven men, two women and four children.
Once again, I must stress that these incidents just happen to have been reported and that they are probably only the tip of the iceberg of civilians being killed by U.S. air strikes.
Iraqi Health Ministry reports in September 2004 and January 2005 attributed 72 percent and 62 percent respectively of civilian deaths in Iraq to "coalition" forces, not "insurgents", and attributed the high numbers killed by U.S. forces specifically to air strikes.
The first of two epidemiological studies on mortality in Iraq published in the Lancet medical journal supported these findings, while the second did not attempt to break down deaths by who was responsible. The Health Ministry retracted its January 2005 figures after the BBC reported them, and has stopped attributing any proportion of Iraqi deaths to occupation forces. It is important to understand that, while "precision" weapons are more accurate today than in the past, about 15-25 percent still miss their targets by at least 40 feet, so the impression conveyed by the Centcom press office and CNN that they can be used to safely and surgically "zap" one house in an urban area is an artful blend of propaganda and science fiction.
Previous reports by Iraqi and international human rights monitors have also found that 60-80 percent of prisoners held by Iraqi forces recruited, trained and directed by the U.S. command in Iraq have been tortured, and UNAMI has documented cases in which people have been sentenced to death and executed based on confessions apparently obtained by torture.
The current report also protests the indefinite detention of Iraqis without charge by U.S. forces, and states "persons who are deprived of their liberty are entitled to be informed of the reasons for their arrest; to be brought promptly before a judge if held on a criminal charge, and to challenge the lawfulness of their detention."
The UNAMI report does not directly address torture by U.S. forces, but the International Committee of the Red Cross and other human rights groups have documented extensive and systematic violations of international humanitarian law in the treatment of prisoners by U.S. forces in Iraq. The U.S. government has tortured and abused prisoners throughout its network of prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Cuba, as well as in CIA-run prisons in Romania, Mauretania, Diego Garcia, and elsewhere.
Human rights groups have amassed incontrovertible evidence of systematic torture, authorized at the highest levels, throughout this gulag, including death threats, mock executions, near-drowning, excruciating stress positions, hypothermia, sleep deprivation, electric shocks, various forms of sodomy, and endless beatings, to say nothing of more psychological forms of torture such as sexual humiliation and torture of family members.
In February 2006, Human Rights First issued “Command’s Responsibility,” a report on 98 deaths in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan, endorsed by two retired generals and an admiral. The dead included eight people confirmed tortured to death; another 37 suspected or confirmed homicides; and a tell-tale lack of information about 48 more who died of “undetermined” or “unannounced” causes.
Until we succeed in ending the U.S. occupation and restoring genuine sovereignty and independence to Iraq, preventing the torture and killing of Iraqi civilians by U.S. forces has to be a top priority. Apart from the brief and localized scandal over the pictures from Abu Ghraib, this is a topic that the political debate in Congress and the corporate media have scrupulously avoided.
Senator Bob Graham told his colleagues in October 2002 that "Blood is going to be on your hands", and they are now in it up to their armpits, even as they deny both the carnage and their role in continuing and escalating it. Until this horror comes to an end, Americans must join UNAMI in publicizing, condemning and demanding accountability for every single act of illegal, indiscriminate and excessive killing by American forces in Iraq, with particular attention to the mass killing of Iraqi civilians by U.S. air strikes.
Online JournalEmail Online Journal Editor
Oct 23, 2007
Just as U.S. air operations over Iraq have reached their highest level since the destruction of Fallujah in November 2004, with as many as 70 close air support missions flown on many days since October 1, a new Human Rights Report published by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq has challenged the United States to stop killing civilians in illegal air strikes.
The Human Rights Report for the second quarter of 2007 was long overdue, and was finally published on October 11. The report explains that it was modified following discussions with U.S. and Iraqi occupation authorities, and this appears to account for the long delay in its publication.
The report makes it clear that U.S. air strikes in densely populated civilian areas are violations of international human rights law. A footnote to the section on "MNF military operations and the killing of civilians" explains, "Customary international humanitarian law demands that, as much as possible, military objectives must not be located within areas densely populated by civilians. The presence of individual combatants among a great number of civilians does not alter the civilian character of an area."
UNAMI demands "that all credible allegations of unlawful killings by MNF (Multi National Force) forces be thoroughly, promptly and impartially investigated, and appropriate action taken against military personnel found to have used excessive or indiscriminate force" and adds that, "The initiation of investigation into such incidents, as well as their findings, should be made public."
The UNAMI report provides the following details of 88 Iraqi civilians killed by air strikes, 15 civilians killed "in the context of raid and search operations" by U.S. ground forces and several incidents of torture and extra-judicial execution by members of Iraqi auxiliary forces under overall U.S. command. UNAMI investigated these incidents because a relative, a journalist or a local official brought each one to its attention. Without doubt, the U.S. Department of Defense is aware of many more killings of civilians by air strikes and ground operations, hence UNAMI's urgent demand for full public disclosure and investigation of all such killings.
March 11 - Nine civilians in 5 villages near Ba'quba killed by U.S. air strikes.
March 13 & 14 - Twelve Palestinians detained by the Interior Ministry at al-Baladiyat and tortured with electric shocks to sensitive parts of the body, forcing metal sticks down the throat, and rape and other sexual assault with metal objects.
March 15 - Two civilians killed in Dulu'iya by a U.S. air strike.
March 29 - A 14-year-old boy and three other family members killed in Mosul by a U.S. raid on the home of Zeyour Mohamed Khalil.
March 30 - Sixteen civilians killed in Sadr City by U.S. air strikes.
April 2 - Six civilians killed in U.S. raids on the homes of Bashar Mahfoudh and Walid al-Ahmadi near Mosul.
April 3 - Twenty-seven civilians killed in Khaldiya, near Ramadi, by U.S. air strikes.
April 12 - Three civilians killed in southern Haditha in a house raid by U.S. forces.
April 26 - U.S. air strikes kill four civilians in Sadr City and four more in Taji.
April 29 - Al-Kesra, Baghdad, five men found dead after being detained by Iraqi Army in al-Sifina.
April 30 - Three civilians killed by an air strike in Basra.
May 3 - Hay al-Amel, Baghdad, 16 people detained and killed by Interior Ministry Public Order Forces.
May 4th - Al-Dubbat, Baghdad, 14 civilians arrested and then shot dead by Iraqi security forces.
May 5 - Seven civilians killed by a U.S. air strike east of Baghdad.
May 5 - Hay al-Rissala, Baghdad, men guarding a mosque detained and executed by Iraqi security forces.
May 6 - One civilian killed by a U.S. air strike in Sadr City.
May 8 - Seven children killed by a U.S. helicopter attack on an elementary school in Diyala province.
May 26 - Eight civilians in Basra killed by air strikes.
May 29 - Four prisoners executed by the Kurdistan Regional Government after testifying to the death under torture of Fahmi Ismail Abu Bakr in 2005.
June 6 - Yassin Farhan and his son Sarmad killed by U.S. troops in a house raid in Baghdad.
April-June - Seventy-three percent of KRG detainees interviewed by UNAMI reported being victims of torture.
The recent increase in U.S. air operations in Iraq has brought a spate of reports of more such incidents. On the day the UNAMI report was released, six women, nine children and 19 men were killed in air strikes near Lake Tharthar, north of Baghdad. The Centcom press office immediately declared that the 19 men were "terrorists" but similar claims regarding previous air strikes have been contradicted by local residents and officials, and they beg the question as to how you know that 19 men were "terrorists" after you've blown them off the face of the earth.
An air strike on September 25 in Mussayyib, 30 miles south of Baghdad, killed five women and four children; and one on September 28 on the al-Saha district of Baghdad killed seven men, two women and four children.
Once again, I must stress that these incidents just happen to have been reported and that they are probably only the tip of the iceberg of civilians being killed by U.S. air strikes.
Iraqi Health Ministry reports in September 2004 and January 2005 attributed 72 percent and 62 percent respectively of civilian deaths in Iraq to "coalition" forces, not "insurgents", and attributed the high numbers killed by U.S. forces specifically to air strikes.
The first of two epidemiological studies on mortality in Iraq published in the Lancet medical journal supported these findings, while the second did not attempt to break down deaths by who was responsible. The Health Ministry retracted its January 2005 figures after the BBC reported them, and has stopped attributing any proportion of Iraqi deaths to occupation forces. It is important to understand that, while "precision" weapons are more accurate today than in the past, about 15-25 percent still miss their targets by at least 40 feet, so the impression conveyed by the Centcom press office and CNN that they can be used to safely and surgically "zap" one house in an urban area is an artful blend of propaganda and science fiction.
Previous reports by Iraqi and international human rights monitors have also found that 60-80 percent of prisoners held by Iraqi forces recruited, trained and directed by the U.S. command in Iraq have been tortured, and UNAMI has documented cases in which people have been sentenced to death and executed based on confessions apparently obtained by torture.
The current report also protests the indefinite detention of Iraqis without charge by U.S. forces, and states "persons who are deprived of their liberty are entitled to be informed of the reasons for their arrest; to be brought promptly before a judge if held on a criminal charge, and to challenge the lawfulness of their detention."
The UNAMI report does not directly address torture by U.S. forces, but the International Committee of the Red Cross and other human rights groups have documented extensive and systematic violations of international humanitarian law in the treatment of prisoners by U.S. forces in Iraq. The U.S. government has tortured and abused prisoners throughout its network of prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Cuba, as well as in CIA-run prisons in Romania, Mauretania, Diego Garcia, and elsewhere.
Human rights groups have amassed incontrovertible evidence of systematic torture, authorized at the highest levels, throughout this gulag, including death threats, mock executions, near-drowning, excruciating stress positions, hypothermia, sleep deprivation, electric shocks, various forms of sodomy, and endless beatings, to say nothing of more psychological forms of torture such as sexual humiliation and torture of family members.
In February 2006, Human Rights First issued “Command’s Responsibility,” a report on 98 deaths in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan, endorsed by two retired generals and an admiral. The dead included eight people confirmed tortured to death; another 37 suspected or confirmed homicides; and a tell-tale lack of information about 48 more who died of “undetermined” or “unannounced” causes.
Until we succeed in ending the U.S. occupation and restoring genuine sovereignty and independence to Iraq, preventing the torture and killing of Iraqi civilians by U.S. forces has to be a top priority. Apart from the brief and localized scandal over the pictures from Abu Ghraib, this is a topic that the political debate in Congress and the corporate media have scrupulously avoided.
Senator Bob Graham told his colleagues in October 2002 that "Blood is going to be on your hands", and they are now in it up to their armpits, even as they deny both the carnage and their role in continuing and escalating it. Until this horror comes to an end, Americans must join UNAMI in publicizing, condemning and demanding accountability for every single act of illegal, indiscriminate and excessive killing by American forces in Iraq, with particular attention to the mass killing of Iraqi civilians by U.S. air strikes.
Online JournalEmail Online Journal Editor
mercredi 24 octobre 2007
US Plans Military Strikes on PKK Bases
By Peter Symonds
24 October, 2007 WSWS.org
With the Turkish military poised to strike the guerrilla bases of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, Washington and London are engaged in frantic diplomatic activity to prevent a Turkish intervention that would further destabilise the US occupation of Iraq. However, as the Chicago Tribune reported yesterday, the Bush administration is also drawing up plans for military attacks on the PKK, either by US forces or jointly with the Turkish army.
The Turkish government has seized on recent PKK attacks inside Turkey to justify a huge military buildup along the border with Iraq. At least 60,000 heavily-armed soldiers, backed by tanks, artillery, warplanes and helicopter gunships, have been assembled to hit PKK camps in the rugged Qandil Mountains bordering Iraq, Iran and Turkey. Last week, the Turkish parliament voted overwhelmingly to authorise the government to order cross-border operations.
On Sunday, tensions reached boiling point after some 200 PKK rebels attacked a Turkish army post, killing at least 12 soldiers and capturing eight others. The Turkish military counterattacked, pursuing the guerrillas over the border into Iraq. According to the Turkish press, combat aircraft hit more than 60 targets inside Iraq. However, Turkey held back from launching a large-scale invasion into Iraq’s Kurdish north.
The Turkish government is insisting that the US and Iraq take action to destroy the PKK’s bases, capture the PKK leaders and hand them over to Ankara. In response, the US and Britain pressed the Iraqi government and the Kurdish regional government to deal with the PKK. A series of meetings over the past two days in Washington, London and Baghdad has failed to the resolve the issue.
After speaking to Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ominously warned: “We cannot wait forever... We have to make our own decision.” In Baghdad, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, while calling for a diplomatic solution, rejected out-of-hand the suggestion of a ceasefire with the PKK, which he insisted was a “terrorist organisation”.
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack described the frenzy of diplomatic activity as a “full-court press” by Bush administration officials to prevent a Turkish invasion of northern Iraq. The basketball analogy, however, implies a planned strategy. It would be more appropriate to describe the US response as one of sheer panic as the consequences of the Bush administration’s criminal invasion of Iraq and its reckless preparations for a new war on Iran come home to roost.
The Kurdish north of Iraq is routinely hailed as the great success story of the US occupation. In reality, it is a highly unstable house of cards. As the pay off for their backing of the US invasion in 2003, the Bush administration allowed the two major Kurdish nationalist parties—the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)—to establish an autonomous region in three northern provinces. From the outset, Turkish leaders regarded the regional government as a threat that would encourage broader Kurdish separatist sentiment. They were particularly hostile to its demands for control of the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, which has a sizeable Turkmen population, and the surrounding oil fields.
The failure of the US to take any action against PKK guerrillas entrenched in the Qandil Mountains has only heightened tensions with Turkey. The PKK and its sister organisation, the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK), which operates inside Iran, have been allowed to function freely in Iraq’s northern provinces, obtaining supplies and finance through its major cities. Despite denials, there is ample evidence that the US and Israel have been covertly arming and training PJAK guerrillas as a means of gathering intelligence inside Iran and destabilising the Iranian regime. The New York Times, for instance, published a lengthy story yesterday citing a PJAK leader as saying there was “normal dialogue” with American officials.
The lack of any clear cut dividing line between the PJAK and PKK—both groups operate from the same mountainous areas, share a similar Kurdish separatist program and common origins—only underscores the Bush administration’s hypocrisy and cynicism. To keep US ally Turkey on side, the US has branded the PKK as a terrorist organisation, but not the PJAK.
Any Turkish attack on the PKK/PJAK bases and Kurdish villages in Iraq would inevitably provoke an angry reaction among Iraqi Kurds and threaten to draw in Kurdish peshmerga militia units and the Iraqi army. Such a move would be deeply destabilising, not only for the Kurdish regional government, but also the Iraqi government in Baghdad, which relies heavily on PUK/KDP support.
US military preparations
Washington is clearly desperate to prevent a Turkish military intervention in Iraq or a breach in the US/Turkish alliance. Quite apart from long-term strategic considerations, the US military funnels around 70 percent of its air cargo to Iraq via a major US air base in southern Turkey. At the same time, more than 1,000 Turkish troops are in Afghanistan as part of NATO forces, helping to prop up the US-led occupation of that country.
While publicly calling for a diplomatic solution to the crisis, the Bush administration is also making preparations for a military assault on PKK bases. President Bush spoke to Turkish President Abdullah Gul on Monday via telephone. According to White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe, Bush offered reassurances to Gul that the US would work with Turkey and Iraq “to combat PKK terrorists operating out of northern Iraq”.
The Chicago Tribune yesterday reported that military action was discussed. An unnamed US official familiar with the Bush/Gul conversation told the newspaper that the US was seriously looking into options beyond diplomacy to deal with the PKK. “It’s not ‘Kumbaya’ time anymore—just talking about trilateral talks is not going to be enough. Something has to be done,” the official said.
A range of military options were being considered, including air strikes and the use of cruise missiles against PKK bases. Another option discussed was to persuade the Kurdish regional government to use its militia forces to establish a cordon around the mountains where the PKK is entrenched, in order to choke off its supply routes. The deployment of US troops to hit the PKK was considered to be a final resort.
Highlighting the fears in Washington, the US official told the Chicago Tribune: “In the past, there has been reluctance to engage in direct US military action against the PKK, either through air strikes or some kind of Special Forces action. But the red line was always, if the Turks were going to come over the border, it could be so destabilising that it might be less risky for us to do something ourselves. Now the Turks are at the end of their rope, and our risk calculus is changing.”
Bush’s discussion with Gul followed an urgent telephone call on Sunday by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, urging him to hold back from an immediate military attack inside northern Iraq. Chicago Tribune reported that Erdogan had given a 72-hour reprieve on any cross-border attack. The Turkish government is under pressure from the military and opposition parties, particularly extreme right-wing nationalists, to launch a military operation. At the same time, however, it is deeply concerned about an open breach with the US and the consequences of war that threatens to be inconclusive and could become a broader regional conflict.
An article posted on the Thomson Financial web site indicated that the US and Turkey may be planning a combined military operation against the PKK. As he flew to London on Monday, Erdogan told reporters: “We may conduct a joint operation with the United States against the PKK in northern Iraq... We expect to work jointly, just as we do in Afghanistan.” Speaking of his conversation with Rice the previous day, he added: “She was worried. I saw she was in favour of a joint operation. She asked for a few days time and said she would come back to us.”
The Iraqi Kurdish nationalist parties are obviously alarmed. By slavishly supporting the US occupation of Iraq, the PUK and KDP calculated that they would have American backing to establish their own small political and business empire in northern Iraq that would eventually include the oil-rich region around Kirkuk. Having declared that it would resist any Turkish invasion, the regional government is now under pressure from its American sponsors to take action itself against the PKK. Its jealously guarded “autonomy” is rapidly crumbling under the pressure of demands from Ankara and Washington.
After discussions at the White House, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh, a member of the PUK, told the Brookings Institute on Monday: “My worry is that there are demands of the KRG and the Iraqi government to ‘fight the PKK’. That could well be a recipe for an open-ended conflict in which we will not win and will basically destabilise the only stable part of Iraq.”
There is a long history of the sordid manoeuvres by various Kurdish nationalist politicians with the major powers ending in disaster for the Kurdish people. The present situation is no different. The “stable” north of Iraq may well become the new battleground for “an open-ended conflict”. Those immediately responsible are the PUK and KDP leaders who tied the fate of Iraqi Kurds to the Bush administration and its criminal occupation of Iraq.
http://www.countercurrents.org/symonds241007.htm
24 October, 2007 WSWS.org
With the Turkish military poised to strike the guerrilla bases of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, Washington and London are engaged in frantic diplomatic activity to prevent a Turkish intervention that would further destabilise the US occupation of Iraq. However, as the Chicago Tribune reported yesterday, the Bush administration is also drawing up plans for military attacks on the PKK, either by US forces or jointly with the Turkish army.
The Turkish government has seized on recent PKK attacks inside Turkey to justify a huge military buildup along the border with Iraq. At least 60,000 heavily-armed soldiers, backed by tanks, artillery, warplanes and helicopter gunships, have been assembled to hit PKK camps in the rugged Qandil Mountains bordering Iraq, Iran and Turkey. Last week, the Turkish parliament voted overwhelmingly to authorise the government to order cross-border operations.
On Sunday, tensions reached boiling point after some 200 PKK rebels attacked a Turkish army post, killing at least 12 soldiers and capturing eight others. The Turkish military counterattacked, pursuing the guerrillas over the border into Iraq. According to the Turkish press, combat aircraft hit more than 60 targets inside Iraq. However, Turkey held back from launching a large-scale invasion into Iraq’s Kurdish north.
The Turkish government is insisting that the US and Iraq take action to destroy the PKK’s bases, capture the PKK leaders and hand them over to Ankara. In response, the US and Britain pressed the Iraqi government and the Kurdish regional government to deal with the PKK. A series of meetings over the past two days in Washington, London and Baghdad has failed to the resolve the issue.
After speaking to Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ominously warned: “We cannot wait forever... We have to make our own decision.” In Baghdad, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, while calling for a diplomatic solution, rejected out-of-hand the suggestion of a ceasefire with the PKK, which he insisted was a “terrorist organisation”.
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack described the frenzy of diplomatic activity as a “full-court press” by Bush administration officials to prevent a Turkish invasion of northern Iraq. The basketball analogy, however, implies a planned strategy. It would be more appropriate to describe the US response as one of sheer panic as the consequences of the Bush administration’s criminal invasion of Iraq and its reckless preparations for a new war on Iran come home to roost.
The Kurdish north of Iraq is routinely hailed as the great success story of the US occupation. In reality, it is a highly unstable house of cards. As the pay off for their backing of the US invasion in 2003, the Bush administration allowed the two major Kurdish nationalist parties—the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)—to establish an autonomous region in three northern provinces. From the outset, Turkish leaders regarded the regional government as a threat that would encourage broader Kurdish separatist sentiment. They were particularly hostile to its demands for control of the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, which has a sizeable Turkmen population, and the surrounding oil fields.
The failure of the US to take any action against PKK guerrillas entrenched in the Qandil Mountains has only heightened tensions with Turkey. The PKK and its sister organisation, the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK), which operates inside Iran, have been allowed to function freely in Iraq’s northern provinces, obtaining supplies and finance through its major cities. Despite denials, there is ample evidence that the US and Israel have been covertly arming and training PJAK guerrillas as a means of gathering intelligence inside Iran and destabilising the Iranian regime. The New York Times, for instance, published a lengthy story yesterday citing a PJAK leader as saying there was “normal dialogue” with American officials.
The lack of any clear cut dividing line between the PJAK and PKK—both groups operate from the same mountainous areas, share a similar Kurdish separatist program and common origins—only underscores the Bush administration’s hypocrisy and cynicism. To keep US ally Turkey on side, the US has branded the PKK as a terrorist organisation, but not the PJAK.
Any Turkish attack on the PKK/PJAK bases and Kurdish villages in Iraq would inevitably provoke an angry reaction among Iraqi Kurds and threaten to draw in Kurdish peshmerga militia units and the Iraqi army. Such a move would be deeply destabilising, not only for the Kurdish regional government, but also the Iraqi government in Baghdad, which relies heavily on PUK/KDP support.
US military preparations
Washington is clearly desperate to prevent a Turkish military intervention in Iraq or a breach in the US/Turkish alliance. Quite apart from long-term strategic considerations, the US military funnels around 70 percent of its air cargo to Iraq via a major US air base in southern Turkey. At the same time, more than 1,000 Turkish troops are in Afghanistan as part of NATO forces, helping to prop up the US-led occupation of that country.
While publicly calling for a diplomatic solution to the crisis, the Bush administration is also making preparations for a military assault on PKK bases. President Bush spoke to Turkish President Abdullah Gul on Monday via telephone. According to White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe, Bush offered reassurances to Gul that the US would work with Turkey and Iraq “to combat PKK terrorists operating out of northern Iraq”.
The Chicago Tribune yesterday reported that military action was discussed. An unnamed US official familiar with the Bush/Gul conversation told the newspaper that the US was seriously looking into options beyond diplomacy to deal with the PKK. “It’s not ‘Kumbaya’ time anymore—just talking about trilateral talks is not going to be enough. Something has to be done,” the official said.
A range of military options were being considered, including air strikes and the use of cruise missiles against PKK bases. Another option discussed was to persuade the Kurdish regional government to use its militia forces to establish a cordon around the mountains where the PKK is entrenched, in order to choke off its supply routes. The deployment of US troops to hit the PKK was considered to be a final resort.
Highlighting the fears in Washington, the US official told the Chicago Tribune: “In the past, there has been reluctance to engage in direct US military action against the PKK, either through air strikes or some kind of Special Forces action. But the red line was always, if the Turks were going to come over the border, it could be so destabilising that it might be less risky for us to do something ourselves. Now the Turks are at the end of their rope, and our risk calculus is changing.”
Bush’s discussion with Gul followed an urgent telephone call on Sunday by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, urging him to hold back from an immediate military attack inside northern Iraq. Chicago Tribune reported that Erdogan had given a 72-hour reprieve on any cross-border attack. The Turkish government is under pressure from the military and opposition parties, particularly extreme right-wing nationalists, to launch a military operation. At the same time, however, it is deeply concerned about an open breach with the US and the consequences of war that threatens to be inconclusive and could become a broader regional conflict.
An article posted on the Thomson Financial web site indicated that the US and Turkey may be planning a combined military operation against the PKK. As he flew to London on Monday, Erdogan told reporters: “We may conduct a joint operation with the United States against the PKK in northern Iraq... We expect to work jointly, just as we do in Afghanistan.” Speaking of his conversation with Rice the previous day, he added: “She was worried. I saw she was in favour of a joint operation. She asked for a few days time and said she would come back to us.”
The Iraqi Kurdish nationalist parties are obviously alarmed. By slavishly supporting the US occupation of Iraq, the PUK and KDP calculated that they would have American backing to establish their own small political and business empire in northern Iraq that would eventually include the oil-rich region around Kirkuk. Having declared that it would resist any Turkish invasion, the regional government is now under pressure from its American sponsors to take action itself against the PKK. Its jealously guarded “autonomy” is rapidly crumbling under the pressure of demands from Ankara and Washington.
After discussions at the White House, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh, a member of the PUK, told the Brookings Institute on Monday: “My worry is that there are demands of the KRG and the Iraqi government to ‘fight the PKK’. That could well be a recipe for an open-ended conflict in which we will not win and will basically destabilise the only stable part of Iraq.”
There is a long history of the sordid manoeuvres by various Kurdish nationalist politicians with the major powers ending in disaster for the Kurdish people. The present situation is no different. The “stable” north of Iraq may well become the new battleground for “an open-ended conflict”. Those immediately responsible are the PUK and KDP leaders who tied the fate of Iraqi Kurds to the Bush administration and its criminal occupation of Iraq.
http://www.countercurrents.org/symonds241007.htm
STOP U.S. Congress VOTE to partition Iraq
Web site: http://iraqivoicesforpeace.org/
STOP US CONGRESS VOTE TO PARTITION IRAQ AS EARLY AS NEXT WEEK.
Take action NOW!
On September 26th 2007 an overwhelming majority of US Senates voted to pass Senator Biden’s amendment to PARTITION IRAQ along SECTARIAN and ETHNIC lines into three different federalist regions. The vote passed with overwhelming support of 75 to 23.
Next the US Congress will be making a final vote in a Conference Committee to pass Biden’s amendment in the next 2 weeks.
We urge the U.S. Congress and all other U.S. policymakers to DROP the Biden resolution before concluding the conference agreement on the FY08 Defense Authorization Bill.
We are a group of Iraqis, some are Iraqi-Americans, living in the Greater Washington DC Area committed to peace, equality, and unity of Iraq are alarmed by the recent Biden resolution in the Senate to 'soft partition' of Iraq.
We have decided to issue the attached letter to US Congress expressing our disagreement this colonial action to impose a partition of Iraq without allowing the Iraqi people to decide for themselves.
If you are an Iraqi, or of Iraqi descent or heritage, or a world citizen and wish to support the statement please urgently indicate your sponsorship and support the call of the Iraqi voices.
Petition:
Urgent Open Letter to the U.S. Congress Protesting U.S. Senator Biden’s Amendment to Partition Iraq
We --- Iraqi-Americans and Iraqis around the world --- are Arabs, Kurds, Turkomen, Sunnis, Shia’, Christians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriac, Yazidis, Sabeans and Armenians. We are, above all, Iraqis. As Iraqis, we have been unheard and unrepresented in Washington, which is unilaterally deciding the fate of our homeland. Iraq is a country with a pre-colonial identity as a nation-state --- Mesopotamia --- going back to ancient pre-biblical times.
Iraqis of different backgrounds, races, ethnicities and sects have coexisted for thousands of years, shaping and being part of a great and pluralistic civilization. Only the Iraqi people have the right to determine the political and national future of Iraq.
We, therefore, strongly denounce the resolution that was passed by the US Senate on September 26, 2007 that would allow a foreign government (the U.S. Government), not the Iraqis, to divide Iraq into ethnically-defined regions and sow the seeds for further conflict across our country and the whole region. This would be the act of a new colonial power – not the act of a great democracy --- no different in substance from the acts of the post-World War I colonial powers in dividing the Middle East.
Partitioning Iraq into three ethnic and religious regions will have dire consequences across the entire Middle East and West Asia region. We urge the U.S. Congress and all other U.S. policymakers to drop the Biden resolution before concluding the conference agreement on the FY08 Defense Authorization Bill and carefully consider the following:
* The current Iraqi Constitution is still in dispute, but nowhere does it call for dividing our country based on ethnic and sectarian lines. Forming a consensus around an evolved constitution is a political task considered necessary for a political settlement in Iraq.
* We support, as Members of Congress claim they do, Iraq’s sovereignty and democracy - both require listening to and respecting the voice of the Iraqi people, who have been kept out of the process.
* The Biden resolution proposes a religious-ethnic solution in place of what should be a political solution. It is a prelude to future conflicts and a domino effect of sectarianism in Iraq, which will in turn lead to more instability within Iraq and throughout the region including Turkey, Iran, Syria, Jordan and the Gulf States.
Furthermore, it will prevent political reconciliation among Iraqis and between Iraqis and Americans.
* Partitioning Iraq will create a bloodbath on a scale wider than that caused by the 1947 India-Pakistan partition. Major Iraqi cities are ethnically and religiously mixed. Partition will dramatically escalate the ethnic cleansing that has already made 4.2 million Iraqis into internal or international refugees.
* Overwhelming majorities of Iraqis and Americans have reached the same conclusion and consistently made the call: End the U.S. occupation; allow Iraqis to begin the hard work of rebuilding our society and our country; and, assist in construction of peace, justice, and democracy in Iraq. The U.S. voters strongly supported this call in the last election. The call remains unheeded by the U.S Government and, now, by the U.S. Congress.
Sign the petition
STOP US CONGRESS VOTE TO PARTITION IRAQ AS EARLY AS NEXT WEEK.
Take action NOW!
On September 26th 2007 an overwhelming majority of US Senates voted to pass Senator Biden’s amendment to PARTITION IRAQ along SECTARIAN and ETHNIC lines into three different federalist regions. The vote passed with overwhelming support of 75 to 23.
Next the US Congress will be making a final vote in a Conference Committee to pass Biden’s amendment in the next 2 weeks.
We urge the U.S. Congress and all other U.S. policymakers to DROP the Biden resolution before concluding the conference agreement on the FY08 Defense Authorization Bill.
We are a group of Iraqis, some are Iraqi-Americans, living in the Greater Washington DC Area committed to peace, equality, and unity of Iraq are alarmed by the recent Biden resolution in the Senate to 'soft partition' of Iraq.
We have decided to issue the attached letter to US Congress expressing our disagreement this colonial action to impose a partition of Iraq without allowing the Iraqi people to decide for themselves.
If you are an Iraqi, or of Iraqi descent or heritage, or a world citizen and wish to support the statement please urgently indicate your sponsorship and support the call of the Iraqi voices.
Petition:
Urgent Open Letter to the U.S. Congress Protesting U.S. Senator Biden’s Amendment to Partition Iraq
We --- Iraqi-Americans and Iraqis around the world --- are Arabs, Kurds, Turkomen, Sunnis, Shia’, Christians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriac, Yazidis, Sabeans and Armenians. We are, above all, Iraqis. As Iraqis, we have been unheard and unrepresented in Washington, which is unilaterally deciding the fate of our homeland. Iraq is a country with a pre-colonial identity as a nation-state --- Mesopotamia --- going back to ancient pre-biblical times.
Iraqis of different backgrounds, races, ethnicities and sects have coexisted for thousands of years, shaping and being part of a great and pluralistic civilization. Only the Iraqi people have the right to determine the political and national future of Iraq.
We, therefore, strongly denounce the resolution that was passed by the US Senate on September 26, 2007 that would allow a foreign government (the U.S. Government), not the Iraqis, to divide Iraq into ethnically-defined regions and sow the seeds for further conflict across our country and the whole region. This would be the act of a new colonial power – not the act of a great democracy --- no different in substance from the acts of the post-World War I colonial powers in dividing the Middle East.
Partitioning Iraq into three ethnic and religious regions will have dire consequences across the entire Middle East and West Asia region. We urge the U.S. Congress and all other U.S. policymakers to drop the Biden resolution before concluding the conference agreement on the FY08 Defense Authorization Bill and carefully consider the following:
* The current Iraqi Constitution is still in dispute, but nowhere does it call for dividing our country based on ethnic and sectarian lines. Forming a consensus around an evolved constitution is a political task considered necessary for a political settlement in Iraq.
* We support, as Members of Congress claim they do, Iraq’s sovereignty and democracy - both require listening to and respecting the voice of the Iraqi people, who have been kept out of the process.
* The Biden resolution proposes a religious-ethnic solution in place of what should be a political solution. It is a prelude to future conflicts and a domino effect of sectarianism in Iraq, which will in turn lead to more instability within Iraq and throughout the region including Turkey, Iran, Syria, Jordan and the Gulf States.
Furthermore, it will prevent political reconciliation among Iraqis and between Iraqis and Americans.
* Partitioning Iraq will create a bloodbath on a scale wider than that caused by the 1947 India-Pakistan partition. Major Iraqi cities are ethnically and religiously mixed. Partition will dramatically escalate the ethnic cleansing that has already made 4.2 million Iraqis into internal or international refugees.
* Overwhelming majorities of Iraqis and Americans have reached the same conclusion and consistently made the call: End the U.S. occupation; allow Iraqis to begin the hard work of rebuilding our society and our country; and, assist in construction of peace, justice, and democracy in Iraq. The U.S. voters strongly supported this call in the last election. The call remains unheeded by the U.S Government and, now, by the U.S. Congress.
Sign the petition
Exemple à suivre
According to Phil Stewart’s article (Reuters) “Ecuador wants military base in Miami” President Rafael Correa, Ecuador’s President, said Washington must let him open a military base in Miami if the United States wants to keep using an air base on Ecuador’s Pacific coast. He has refused to renew Washington’s lease on the Manta air base, set to expire in 2009.
"We'll renew the base on one condition: that they let us put a base in Miami -- an Ecuadorean base," Correa said in an interview during a trip to Italy."If there's no problem having foreign soldiers on a country's soil, surely they'll let us have an Ecuadorean base in the United States."Correa, had promised to cut off his arm before extending the lease that ends in 2009 and has called U.S. President George W. Bush a "dimwit".
"We'll renew the base on one condition: that they let us put a base in Miami -- an Ecuadorean base," Correa said in an interview during a trip to Italy."If there's no problem having foreign soldiers on a country's soil, surely they'll let us have an Ecuadorean base in the United States."Correa, had promised to cut off his arm before extending the lease that ends in 2009 and has called U.S. President George W. Bush a "dimwit".
Juan Cole: The PKK is being coddled by Massoud Barzani and his Peshmerga
Under all this American pressure, The PKK is said to be offering a conditional ceasefire with Ankara.
The 'conditional' part doesn't seem very promising to me. Although the US says it cannot control the PKK because it has few troops in the north of Iraq, this excuse neglects another reason that the US is essentially coddling a terrorist group that is killing fellow NATO troops.
The fact is that the PKK is being coddled by Massoud Barzani and his Peshmerga, who could stop them hitting Turkey if they so desired.
The other fact is that the US only has one really reliable ally in Iraq, which is the Kurds, and their paramilitary or the Peshmerga is the only element in the new Iraqi army that fights with any spunk or initiative. The US cannot afford to alienate Barzani or the Peshmerga; hence it is forced to try to wheedle Turkey into inaction in the face of a rather dramatic set of provocations.
http://www.juancole.com/
The 'conditional' part doesn't seem very promising to me. Although the US says it cannot control the PKK because it has few troops in the north of Iraq, this excuse neglects another reason that the US is essentially coddling a terrorist group that is killing fellow NATO troops.
The fact is that the PKK is being coddled by Massoud Barzani and his Peshmerga, who could stop them hitting Turkey if they so desired.
The other fact is that the US only has one really reliable ally in Iraq, which is the Kurds, and their paramilitary or the Peshmerga is the only element in the new Iraqi army that fights with any spunk or initiative. The US cannot afford to alienate Barzani or the Peshmerga; hence it is forced to try to wheedle Turkey into inaction in the face of a rather dramatic set of provocations.
http://www.juancole.com/
MHP leader Bahçeli accuses Barzani of heading the PKK
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=125399
Leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Devlet Bahçeli directed harsh criticism at Massoud Barzani, the leader of the Kurdish regional administration in northern Iraq, yesterday.
He accused Barzani of leading the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has carried out a number of deadly attacks in Turkey during the past weeks.
Speaking at a party meeting, Bahçeli asserted that the PKK was no longer headed by Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the organization, but instead by the leader of the peshmerga forces in northern Iraq. He claimed that Barzani has become the head of the separatist activities and terrorism that have been devastating Turkey recently. In light of this, he asked that a possible military incursion into northern Iraq to hit the bases of the PKK should be conducted in such a way as to prevent any threat from the peshmergas as well.
Referring to a recent statement from Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who said Iraq would not even hand a Kurdish cat to Turkey, let alone PKK leaders, Bahçeli said that those making such defiant statements should be reminded of what it means to heckle Turkey.
The MHP leader also directed criticism at the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), which has so far refused to declare the PKK a terrorist organization. “A cross-border operation should not be seen only as a means to render the armed components of the separatist organization inoperative,” he told his party members. He stressed that engaging in separatist activities should not be seen as legitimate just because the perpetrators do not have weapons in their hands, in an apparent appeal to the DTP deputies, who he accuses of engaging in separatism. “Separatism is a project of treason that targets our national solidarity and unity,” Bahçeli said. “While we are looking for terrorists in the Kandil Mountains we should not forget that the supporters of terrorists are wandering in municipal buildings, university conference halls and even in the corridors of the Parliament,” he emphasized, again targeting the DTP deputies.
The MHP leader also said that his party was ready to give complete support to anti-PKK measures that will be taken at home and abroad. “A Parliament that fails to do this [stopping the PKK] has betrayed its raison d’être and violated the grounds for its establishment,” he added.
24.10.2007
News
Today’s Zaman
Leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Devlet Bahçeli directed harsh criticism at Massoud Barzani, the leader of the Kurdish regional administration in northern Iraq, yesterday.
He accused Barzani of leading the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has carried out a number of deadly attacks in Turkey during the past weeks.
Speaking at a party meeting, Bahçeli asserted that the PKK was no longer headed by Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the organization, but instead by the leader of the peshmerga forces in northern Iraq. He claimed that Barzani has become the head of the separatist activities and terrorism that have been devastating Turkey recently. In light of this, he asked that a possible military incursion into northern Iraq to hit the bases of the PKK should be conducted in such a way as to prevent any threat from the peshmergas as well.
Referring to a recent statement from Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who said Iraq would not even hand a Kurdish cat to Turkey, let alone PKK leaders, Bahçeli said that those making such defiant statements should be reminded of what it means to heckle Turkey.
The MHP leader also directed criticism at the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), which has so far refused to declare the PKK a terrorist organization. “A cross-border operation should not be seen only as a means to render the armed components of the separatist organization inoperative,” he told his party members. He stressed that engaging in separatist activities should not be seen as legitimate just because the perpetrators do not have weapons in their hands, in an apparent appeal to the DTP deputies, who he accuses of engaging in separatism. “Separatism is a project of treason that targets our national solidarity and unity,” Bahçeli said. “While we are looking for terrorists in the Kandil Mountains we should not forget that the supporters of terrorists are wandering in municipal buildings, university conference halls and even in the corridors of the Parliament,” he emphasized, again targeting the DTP deputies.
The MHP leader also said that his party was ready to give complete support to anti-PKK measures that will be taken at home and abroad. “A Parliament that fails to do this [stopping the PKK] has betrayed its raison d’être and violated the grounds for its establishment,” he added.
24.10.2007
News
Today’s Zaman
In Iraq, Conflict Simmers on a 2nd Kurdish Front
Go to Original
By Richard A. Oppel Jr. The New York Times
Tuesday 23 October 2007
Baghdad - Deadly raids into Turkey by Kurdish militants holed up in northern Iraq are the focus of urgent diplomacy, with Turkey threatening invasion of Iraq and the United States begging for restraint while expressing solidarity with Turkish anger.
Yet out of the public eye, a chillingly similar battle has been under way on the Iraqi border with Iran. Kurdish guerrillas ambush and kill Iranian forces and retreat to their hide-outs in Iraq. The Americans offer Iran little sympathy. Tehran even says Washington aids the Iranian guerrillas, a charge the United States denies. True or not, that conflict, like the Turkish one, has explosive potential.
Salih Shevger, an Iranian Kurdish guerrilla, was interviewed recently as he lay flat on a slab of rock atop a 10,000-foot mountain on the Iran-Iraq border, with binoculars pressed to his face as he kept watch on Iranian military outposts perched on peaks about four miles away.
He and his comrades recounted how they ambushed an Iranian patrol between the bases a few days before, killing three soldiers and capturing another. "They were sitting and talking on top of a hill, and we approached, hiding ourselves, and fired on them from two sides," said Bayram Gabar, who commanded the raid, and who like all the fighters here uses a nom de guerre.
The guerrillas from the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan, or P.J.A.K., have been waging a deadly insurgency in Iran and they are an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, known as the P.K.K., the Kurdish guerrillas who fight Turkey.
Like the P.K.K., the Iranian Kurds control much of the craggy, boulder-strewn frontier and routinely ambush patrols on the other side. But while the Americans call the P.K.K. terrorists, guerrilla commanders say P.J.A.K. has had "direct or indirect discussions" with American officials. They would not divulge any details of the discussions or the level of the officials involved, but they noted that the group's leader, Rahman Haj-Ahmadi, visited Washington last summer.
Biryar Gabar, one of 11 members of the group's leadership, said there had been "normal dialogue" with American officials, declining specifics. One of his bodyguards said officials of the group met with Americans in Kirkuk last year.
Iranian officials have accused the United States of supplying the fighters and using them in a proxy war, though those assertions were denied by the American military. "The consensus is that U.S. forces are not working with or advising the P.J.A.K.," said an American military spokesman in Baghdad, Cmdr. Scott Rye of the Navy.
A senior American diplomat said that there had not been any official contacts with the group and that he was unaware of its having received any support from the United States. He also said that Mr. Haj-Ahmadi, while in Washington, did not meet with administration officials.
Because the P.K.K. is on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations and aiding such groups is illegal, the United States is eager to avoid any hint of cooperation with the P.J.A.K.
Guerrilla leaders said the Americans classify the P.K.K. as a terrorist group because it is fighting Turkey, an important American ally, while the P.J.A.K. is not labeled as such because it is fighting Iran.
In fact, the two groups appear to a large extent to be one and the same, and share the same goal: fighting campaigns to win new autonomy and rights for Kurds in Iran and Turkey. They share leadership, logistics and allegiance to Abdullah Ocalan, the P.K.K. leader imprisoned in Turkey.
While most Kurds are Sunni Muslims, the guerrillas reject Islamic fundamentalism. Instead, they trace their roots to a Marxist past. They still espouse what they call "scientific socialism" and promote women's rights.
After skirmishes between the guerrillas and Iranian forces intensified this year, the Iranian military began shelling border villages in August, sending residents fleeing and killing livestock. The shelling drew angry criticism from Iraqi leaders, who condemned it as a disproportionate response.
But interviews with guerrillas suggest that they have inflicted considerable damage on Iran. While it is impossible to verify the claims, the leader of the P.K.K., Murat Karayilan, said the P.J.A.K. fighters had killed at least 150 Iranian soldiers and officials in Iran since August. And Biryar Gabar says 108 Iranians were killed in August alone.
The group said the intensity of its military actions varied with the degree of persecution of Kurds within Iran.
The P.J.A.K. guerrillas anchor their operations in small bases in the valleys equipped with generators, satellite television, spring wells and gardens of eggplant, pomegranates, tomatoes and peaches.
They have built several cemeteries to rebury the remains of fighters killed in previous years and to prepare for those yet to die. Pictures of more than 100 dead fighters, including women, cover the interior walls of a building inside one cemetery.
Up in the mountains, where they will stay for a year or more at a time, the fighters live spartan lives, subsisting on plain soups, tea, rice, beans, water and bread baked in makeshift ovens. They have a few tents and sleeping rolls, explaining that the only home they have is what they carry on their backs. The camps are designed for quick getaways.
The guerrillas are adept at hit-and-run tactics, and they thrive in the thin air almost two miles above sea level, climbing and hiking rapidly over the most challenging terrain. They send small teams into Iran armed with Kalashnikov rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, Russian-made sniper rifles and machine guns.
Typically, they will attack a few soldiers at the fringe of a larger group, said Sadun Edesa, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd who said he had been fighting up here for five years. He said the small attack was usually all it took to derail an Iranian operation aimed at rooting out guerrillas inside Iran.
He was recently part of a four-man ambush team that sneaked into Iran and killed five Iranian soldiers, he said, before scampering back to camouflaged positions. "When you hit one of their groups like that, their military operation dies," he said.
At one outpost, the guerrillas allowed a brief interview with the Iranian soldier they say was captured in the ambush described by the P.J.A.K. ambush commander, Bayram Gabar. The prisoner identified himself as Akbar Talibi, a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran.
His uniform bore Guard insignia, and he sat cross-legged on a thin carpet as six guerrillas stood or squatted nearby, one resting a Kalashnikov rifle on his thighs. The prisoner said that of his 70-man unit, 15 had been killed and 17 wounded since August.
The Iranian military, the prisoner added, "wants to destroy P.J.A.K." Iranian officials in Tehran did not respond to requests for comment about the guerrillas or the man the guerrillas identified as a captured soldier.
A former member of the Iranian Parliament, Jalal Jalilizadeh, who is Kurdish, said the guerrilla group increased its attacks and began singling out Revolutionary Guard members and assassinating other officials on the Iranian side of the border a year ago.
There are no official tallies of Iranian casualties, though Mr. Jalilizadeh estimated the total at around 100 since last year. He also confirmed several recent attacks described by the guerrillas, including the downing of an Iranian helicopter near the border in September, which killed at least six.
Mr. Shevger said he led the team that destroyed the helicopter, bringing it down it with a fusillade from machine guns and sniper rifles. "We found a weak point in the helicopter, and we opened fire," he said. The fighting with Iran, he added, "will be worse a year from now."
The group now has "far more" than 2,000 guerrillas fighting Iran, said Biryar Gabar, who added that most of them were based in Iran. There was no way to verify his claim.
But the group still has more than enough fighters in this part of Iraq to be a law unto itself, controlling the few roads in the area with checkpoints. A guerrilla outpost on the crest of a ridge of mountains straddling the border suggests that it holds sway over much of the border, while Iranian soldiers are garrisoned several miles away.
When the heavy shelling began in August, the Iranians also unleashed infantry attacks on guerrilla positions near this outpost but were beaten back, the guerrillas say. The outpost is concealed within a rock outcropping the size of a battle cruiser.
Above it, along the ridge, guerrilla sentries peer through binoculars at troop movements several miles inside Iran, careful to keep their heads down, they say, because the Iranians direct artillery fire at any sign of the guerrillas.
Nothing in their demeanor suggests that the guerrillas will soon abandon their fight. But their growing attacks inside Iran this year have put pressure on the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the dominant political party in the eastern sector of the Kurdistan region of Iraq, which sees Iran as a crucial trading partner. For their part, the guerrillas believe that the party, whose leader is the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, has become a toady for Iran.
But party officials say it would be foolish and shortsighted not to cultivate better relations with Iran and Turkey, from whom the landlocked Kurds obtain gasoline and other critical supplies. Kurdish leaders are also keenly aware that the guerrillas remain popular with the Kurdish public.
Tension between the party and the guerrillas apparently led to a skirmish in late August, when fighters crossed the border from Iran and were attacked by the pesh merga, the armed force affiliated with the party. Mr. Karayilan said he immediately phoned a counterpart at the P.U.K., who he said told him that the party was "getting pressure from Iran."
Mr. Talabani has warned the guerrillas to put their weapons down or leave the border. But a senior party official close to Mr. Talabani admitted that "the people would be against us" if it took action against them.
The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, declined to comment on the August skirmish, but he acknowledged that the pesh merga could not defeat the tough and proficient guerrillas. "If Iran and Turkey with their huge armies cannot control their borders," he said, "how could we do that?"
The guerrillas also appear confident, though they fear the Iranian artillery. Mr. Edesa, the 22-year-old fighter, spoke with assurance about their capabilities against the Iranians. "They have a level of discipline in them as well," he said. "But we are more disciplined. They are a military force, and they live in barracks. But we are a guerrilla force."
--------
Warzer Jaff contributed reporting from Iraqi Kurdistan, and Nazila Fathi from Tehran.
-------
By Richard A. Oppel Jr. The New York Times
Tuesday 23 October 2007
Baghdad - Deadly raids into Turkey by Kurdish militants holed up in northern Iraq are the focus of urgent diplomacy, with Turkey threatening invasion of Iraq and the United States begging for restraint while expressing solidarity with Turkish anger.
Yet out of the public eye, a chillingly similar battle has been under way on the Iraqi border with Iran. Kurdish guerrillas ambush and kill Iranian forces and retreat to their hide-outs in Iraq. The Americans offer Iran little sympathy. Tehran even says Washington aids the Iranian guerrillas, a charge the United States denies. True or not, that conflict, like the Turkish one, has explosive potential.
Salih Shevger, an Iranian Kurdish guerrilla, was interviewed recently as he lay flat on a slab of rock atop a 10,000-foot mountain on the Iran-Iraq border, with binoculars pressed to his face as he kept watch on Iranian military outposts perched on peaks about four miles away.
He and his comrades recounted how they ambushed an Iranian patrol between the bases a few days before, killing three soldiers and capturing another. "They were sitting and talking on top of a hill, and we approached, hiding ourselves, and fired on them from two sides," said Bayram Gabar, who commanded the raid, and who like all the fighters here uses a nom de guerre.
The guerrillas from the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan, or P.J.A.K., have been waging a deadly insurgency in Iran and they are an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, known as the P.K.K., the Kurdish guerrillas who fight Turkey.
Like the P.K.K., the Iranian Kurds control much of the craggy, boulder-strewn frontier and routinely ambush patrols on the other side. But while the Americans call the P.K.K. terrorists, guerrilla commanders say P.J.A.K. has had "direct or indirect discussions" with American officials. They would not divulge any details of the discussions or the level of the officials involved, but they noted that the group's leader, Rahman Haj-Ahmadi, visited Washington last summer.
Biryar Gabar, one of 11 members of the group's leadership, said there had been "normal dialogue" with American officials, declining specifics. One of his bodyguards said officials of the group met with Americans in Kirkuk last year.
Iranian officials have accused the United States of supplying the fighters and using them in a proxy war, though those assertions were denied by the American military. "The consensus is that U.S. forces are not working with or advising the P.J.A.K.," said an American military spokesman in Baghdad, Cmdr. Scott Rye of the Navy.
A senior American diplomat said that there had not been any official contacts with the group and that he was unaware of its having received any support from the United States. He also said that Mr. Haj-Ahmadi, while in Washington, did not meet with administration officials.
Because the P.K.K. is on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations and aiding such groups is illegal, the United States is eager to avoid any hint of cooperation with the P.J.A.K.
Guerrilla leaders said the Americans classify the P.K.K. as a terrorist group because it is fighting Turkey, an important American ally, while the P.J.A.K. is not labeled as such because it is fighting Iran.
In fact, the two groups appear to a large extent to be one and the same, and share the same goal: fighting campaigns to win new autonomy and rights for Kurds in Iran and Turkey. They share leadership, logistics and allegiance to Abdullah Ocalan, the P.K.K. leader imprisoned in Turkey.
While most Kurds are Sunni Muslims, the guerrillas reject Islamic fundamentalism. Instead, they trace their roots to a Marxist past. They still espouse what they call "scientific socialism" and promote women's rights.
After skirmishes between the guerrillas and Iranian forces intensified this year, the Iranian military began shelling border villages in August, sending residents fleeing and killing livestock. The shelling drew angry criticism from Iraqi leaders, who condemned it as a disproportionate response.
But interviews with guerrillas suggest that they have inflicted considerable damage on Iran. While it is impossible to verify the claims, the leader of the P.K.K., Murat Karayilan, said the P.J.A.K. fighters had killed at least 150 Iranian soldiers and officials in Iran since August. And Biryar Gabar says 108 Iranians were killed in August alone.
The group said the intensity of its military actions varied with the degree of persecution of Kurds within Iran.
The P.J.A.K. guerrillas anchor their operations in small bases in the valleys equipped with generators, satellite television, spring wells and gardens of eggplant, pomegranates, tomatoes and peaches.
They have built several cemeteries to rebury the remains of fighters killed in previous years and to prepare for those yet to die. Pictures of more than 100 dead fighters, including women, cover the interior walls of a building inside one cemetery.
Up in the mountains, where they will stay for a year or more at a time, the fighters live spartan lives, subsisting on plain soups, tea, rice, beans, water and bread baked in makeshift ovens. They have a few tents and sleeping rolls, explaining that the only home they have is what they carry on their backs. The camps are designed for quick getaways.
The guerrillas are adept at hit-and-run tactics, and they thrive in the thin air almost two miles above sea level, climbing and hiking rapidly over the most challenging terrain. They send small teams into Iran armed with Kalashnikov rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, Russian-made sniper rifles and machine guns.
Typically, they will attack a few soldiers at the fringe of a larger group, said Sadun Edesa, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd who said he had been fighting up here for five years. He said the small attack was usually all it took to derail an Iranian operation aimed at rooting out guerrillas inside Iran.
He was recently part of a four-man ambush team that sneaked into Iran and killed five Iranian soldiers, he said, before scampering back to camouflaged positions. "When you hit one of their groups like that, their military operation dies," he said.
At one outpost, the guerrillas allowed a brief interview with the Iranian soldier they say was captured in the ambush described by the P.J.A.K. ambush commander, Bayram Gabar. The prisoner identified himself as Akbar Talibi, a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran.
His uniform bore Guard insignia, and he sat cross-legged on a thin carpet as six guerrillas stood or squatted nearby, one resting a Kalashnikov rifle on his thighs. The prisoner said that of his 70-man unit, 15 had been killed and 17 wounded since August.
The Iranian military, the prisoner added, "wants to destroy P.J.A.K." Iranian officials in Tehran did not respond to requests for comment about the guerrillas or the man the guerrillas identified as a captured soldier.
A former member of the Iranian Parliament, Jalal Jalilizadeh, who is Kurdish, said the guerrilla group increased its attacks and began singling out Revolutionary Guard members and assassinating other officials on the Iranian side of the border a year ago.
There are no official tallies of Iranian casualties, though Mr. Jalilizadeh estimated the total at around 100 since last year. He also confirmed several recent attacks described by the guerrillas, including the downing of an Iranian helicopter near the border in September, which killed at least six.
Mr. Shevger said he led the team that destroyed the helicopter, bringing it down it with a fusillade from machine guns and sniper rifles. "We found a weak point in the helicopter, and we opened fire," he said. The fighting with Iran, he added, "will be worse a year from now."
The group now has "far more" than 2,000 guerrillas fighting Iran, said Biryar Gabar, who added that most of them were based in Iran. There was no way to verify his claim.
But the group still has more than enough fighters in this part of Iraq to be a law unto itself, controlling the few roads in the area with checkpoints. A guerrilla outpost on the crest of a ridge of mountains straddling the border suggests that it holds sway over much of the border, while Iranian soldiers are garrisoned several miles away.
When the heavy shelling began in August, the Iranians also unleashed infantry attacks on guerrilla positions near this outpost but were beaten back, the guerrillas say. The outpost is concealed within a rock outcropping the size of a battle cruiser.
Above it, along the ridge, guerrilla sentries peer through binoculars at troop movements several miles inside Iran, careful to keep their heads down, they say, because the Iranians direct artillery fire at any sign of the guerrillas.
Nothing in their demeanor suggests that the guerrillas will soon abandon their fight. But their growing attacks inside Iran this year have put pressure on the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the dominant political party in the eastern sector of the Kurdistan region of Iraq, which sees Iran as a crucial trading partner. For their part, the guerrillas believe that the party, whose leader is the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, has become a toady for Iran.
But party officials say it would be foolish and shortsighted not to cultivate better relations with Iran and Turkey, from whom the landlocked Kurds obtain gasoline and other critical supplies. Kurdish leaders are also keenly aware that the guerrillas remain popular with the Kurdish public.
Tension between the party and the guerrillas apparently led to a skirmish in late August, when fighters crossed the border from Iran and were attacked by the pesh merga, the armed force affiliated with the party. Mr. Karayilan said he immediately phoned a counterpart at the P.U.K., who he said told him that the party was "getting pressure from Iran."
Mr. Talabani has warned the guerrillas to put their weapons down or leave the border. But a senior party official close to Mr. Talabani admitted that "the people would be against us" if it took action against them.
The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, declined to comment on the August skirmish, but he acknowledged that the pesh merga could not defeat the tough and proficient guerrillas. "If Iran and Turkey with their huge armies cannot control their borders," he said, "how could we do that?"
The guerrillas also appear confident, though they fear the Iranian artillery. Mr. Edesa, the 22-year-old fighter, spoke with assurance about their capabilities against the Iranians. "They have a level of discipline in them as well," he said. "But we are more disciplined. They are a military force, and they live in barracks. But we are a guerrilla force."
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Warzer Jaff contributed reporting from Iraqi Kurdistan, and Nazila Fathi from Tehran.
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