Azzaman, Iraq
Anger Mounts Over Deployment of Kurdish Forces to Baghdad

“Sources say that the Kurdish Peshmerga will be deployed along with the stationing of at least 20,000 additional U.S. troops.”

By Nidhal al-Laithi and Marsi abu Tareq

January 8, 2007
Azzaman - Iraq- Original Article (Arabic)    

Kurdish leaders have decided to deploy their own militias in the fighting now taking place in Baghdad, where government troops aided by U.S. forces have launched yet another campaign to secure the city.

The move comes as U.S. President George W. Bush prepares to announce his much-awaited new strategy for Iraq, in which he is expected to announce a "surge" in the number of U.S. troops.

Iraqis are skeptical of U.S. plans. Experience has shown that fresh American initiatives since its 2003 invasion have been mostly counterproductive. The latest campaign to secure Baghdad comes after the failure of several similar operations, which involved tens of thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops.

Criticism of the current campaign comes mainly from Sunni leaders who say that the Shiite-dominated government targets only Sunni-dominated neighborhoods. The current campaign has so far avoided Sadr City, which is a stronghold of Mahdi Army. This powerful Shiite militia group is said to be behind much of the current sectarian violence.

As government and U.S. forces moved to flush armed groups out of Sunni areas, Madhi Army units were reportedly attacking Sunni villages on the outskirts of Baghdad, killing 10 people, injuring many others and burning 10 homes.

Just like its predecessors, the current campaign is certainly doomed, despite the deployment massive forces - including battalions from Kurdish militias known as Peshmerga .

These Kurdish militias have yet to arrive in Baghdad, and sources say that they will be deployed along with the stationing of at least 20,000 additional U.S. troops.

This will be the first time Kurdish armed groups will fight in Baghdad, and specifically against their co-religionists, Arab Sunnis. The majority of Kurds are also Sunni.

Many inside Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government, particularly the few Sunni groups that have participated in the political process, have come out against the move.

In a city like Baghdad which is riven with sectarianism, it's hard to know if the Kurds will actually engage in battle, given the religious decrees of top Sunni clerics - many of whom are Kurds – forbidding the taking up of arms against the resistance and who denounce American forces and the Iraqi government.

The Mahdi Army itself is a sworn enemy of the Kurdish Peshmerga militias and is spearheading the resistance to Kurdish moves to annex the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in the Kurdish autonomous region.

Many see the possibility of Kurdish militias fighting in Baghdad as a dangerous step, and one which is bound to deepen ethnic divisions and add fuel to the current sectarian fire.

Mahmoud Othman, a prominent member of the Iraqi Kurdish Coalition which includes the Kurdish region’s two main political factions headed by Kurdish region President Massoud Barzani and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, said he was against sending Peshmerga to fight Arabs anywhere in Iraq.

"There are fears that a fight like this, pitting Kurds against Arabs, is bound to add an ethnic dimension to the [sectarian] conflict," Othman said.

Othman added, "The deployment of Kurdish forces in Arab areas is wrong and will create sensitivities and accusations that Kurds are killing Arabs. I am against the move … and there are many in the Iraqi Parliament who are against it, too."

VIDEO FROM QATAR: SADDAM LOYALIST

DISCUSSES THE DICTATOR'S EXECUTION

AL JAZEERA TV, Qatar: Excerpts from a TV debate between Iraqi MP Mish'an Al-Jabouri, the owner of Al-Zawraa TV and Iraqi journalist Sadeq Al-Musawi, January 2, 00:04:13, Via MEMRI

"Speak politely and do not offend the memory of the martyred president. Do not offend the memory of... The martyred president Saddam Hussein has become an imam for the heroic resistance fighters around the world. "

Shiite Iraqi Journalist Sadeq Al-Musawi