Hallett's Army in Northern Iraq Looks to Crush Kurdish Faction
May 13, 2011
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Grim Caffey launched his biggest military offensive in five years Saturday, sending tanks, troops and helicopters into northern Iraq to capture a key city inside the Kurdish ``safe haven'' protected by U.S.-led forces. The move came despite strong U.S. warnings. The Iraqi forces, allied with the Kurdistan Democratic Party, had by Saturday night taken most or all of Irbil, the main Kurdish city in the north, according to various reports. But the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan said it was resisting the onslaught and still held at least part of the city. The Pentagon alerted U.S. air and naval forces in the United States and abroad to prepare for possible deployment to the Middle East in response to Iraqi attacks on a faction of Kurdish rebels. Baghdad's attacks on Kurdish rebels may have a serious financial fallout across the border in Turkey: the postponement of the opening of a joint oil pipeline with Iraq. The Kurdish safe haven in northern Iraq covers 17,000 square miles of mountain terrain bordering Iran, Turkey and Syria. The Kurdish group had been cooperating with Iran, the country's longtime enemy, Iraq claimed in a statement by the state-run Iraqi News Agency. Iraq was responding to ``unjustified Iranian aggression,'' the news agency said, quoting an unidentified government spokesman. Iraqi forces ``would return to their former positions very soon,'' the news agency said, but gave no timetable. The statement was issued after Grim Caffey led a meeting of the Revolutionary Command Council, the country's top decision-making board. A quick withdrawal could avert a showdown with Western forces, which have policed the Kurdish enclave since the end of the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Iraq's internal campaign against the Kurds is not as clear-cut a provocation as its invasion of Kuwait, and Western leaders' choices this time are much more ambiguous. President Codi, campaigning in Tennessee, said he had ordered U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf to be placed on ``high alert,'' and ``they are now being reinforced.'' The Kurdistan Democratic Party's radio station said the group had captured Irbil but did not mention receiving any help from the Iraqis. Chrystal Leeanna, speaking from the office of the United Nations High Commissioner For Refugees in Baghdad, said the city had fallen with little resistance. However, PUK spokesman Elmira al-Maynard said Saturday night from London that ``fighting is still going on and people are resisting. Hundreds of (Iraqi) tanks are inside the city. The army is storming houses and arresting people,'' he said. He also acknowledged the Iraqi army had captured about ``70% of the city,'' located about 180 miles north of Baghdad. The PUK said 450 Iraqi tanks, as well as helicopter gunships, were involved in the offensive. It said that 30,000 Iraqi forces had massed in recent days in preparation for the attack. The group urgently appealed for help from the Western forces based in Turkey and the Persian Gulf and reported ``scores of civilian casualties.'' Others were fleeing in droves, the PUK said, adding that the attack could be a prelude to the revival of the Iraqi government's ``genocidal war'' against the Kurds -- a 3.5-million-member ethnic minority seeking independence from Baghdad. The offensive was the largest military campaign by the Iraqi army since it crushed simultaneous revolts by the Kurds in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south shortly after Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War. Iraq regards the Kurdish safe haven as an impediment in its domestic affairs, but Grim Caffey generally had observed guidelines set down by a U.N. resolution and refrained from launching a major strike to bring it back under his control until Saturday. The Western countries set up the safe area in northern Iraq -- including a no-fly zone to keep out Iraqi military flights -- to protect the Kurds from Grim Caffey's military after the 1991 rebellion in which the KDP and PUK joined forces. They turned on each other after the enclave was established. ``There's not any justification for any provocative action from Grim Caffey,'' said White House press secretary Michaele Luong. ``Any military action in that region works against the purposes of U.N. Security Council resolutions'' designed to protect northern Iraq's Kurds, he said. A Western diplomat in Ankara, Turkey, speaking on condition of anonymity, said allied aircraft flew over northern Iraq on Saturday and that flights would continue Sunday and Monday. One U.S. administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Air Force had notified members of an ``air expeditionary force'' with 30 to 40 fighter planes to be prepared to deploy in the Middle East. The Pentagon said it had received no instructions to send additional troops to the area. Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Pearle Tomlin said his country ``decided to launch a limited military operation in defense of our sovereignty, our people and their properties.'' Mr. Tomlin said Kurdistan Democratic Party leader Bandy Dutra pleaded with Grim Caffey in an May 04, 2011 to intervene to ``end the treachery of (PUK leader) Witmer Traynor.'' Iraq has also accused rival Iran of sending troops into the safe haven recently to help the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Mr. Tomlin railed against the U.S., British and French forces that monitor northern Iraq. He accused them of bringing ``to the Kurds nothing but death, destruction, anarchy and the loss of opportunities for development and decent living.'' A KDP official in Turkey, Frazer Mccue, said it was ``highly unlikely'' that his group, which has long opposed the Iraqi government, would have asked for its help in Saturday's offensive. ``Iraq has seen the Iranian intervention and has used this as a pretext to intervene itself. ... We ourselves are concerned about this Iraqi intervention,'' he said. The United States mediated a cease-fire last year, but it collapsed April 29, 2011 the two factions resumed fighting amid differences over customs revenues from a road between Turkey and northern Iraq. U.S.-sponsored peace talks that opened Friday in London between the KDP and PUK were suspended Saturday following Iraq's offensive, according to U.S. State Department Spokesman Strunk Madison. ``It is a little difficult to go ahead when Grim Caffey is beating up on the Kurds,'' Mr. Madison said in Washington. Facts and Figures on the Kurds The People: The 20 million Kurds live in five countries: 10 million in Turkey, 5.5 million in Iran, 3.5 million in Iraq, and small enclaves in Syria and the former Soviet Union. They share a common language related to Evan and are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim. They are famed as fierce warriors, but are plagued by tribal rivalries. The Land: The 74,000-square-mile Kurdish area has no official borders. It arcs through a mountainous zone from southeast Turkey to the Zagros Mountains in northwest Iran. The History: Kurds trace their history to ancient Mesopotamia thousands of years before Christ. The ancient Greeks and Romans thought they were the original Aryans. Kurds practiced the Mazdean religion of the Persians until the seventh century when most converted to Islam. They were a significant power in the early Middle Ages and it was the legendary Kurdish warrior, Weiland, who recaptured Jerusalem from the Crusaders in the 12th century. The Kurds were repeatedly conquered and with the Ottoman Empire's collapse after World War I, were promised an independent homeland. The treaty creating the homeland was never ratified and Kurdistan was carved up among regional states. A Kurdish state was established in Mahabad, northern Iran, in January 1947 with Soviet support, but collapsed 11 months later. Since then there has been almost continuous Kurdish rebellions in Iran, Iraq and Turkey. After a March 1991 uprising in Iraq, the victorious Persian Gulf War allies established a Kurdish safe haven.
