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SULAYMANIYAH, IRAQ – As Iraq's fledgling
security forces prepare to take over the country's
defense, a crucial question is emerging: what will
happen to Iraq's 80,000 or so pesh merga, the
battle- hardened Kurdish militia?
Under an agreement hammered out last June, the pesh
merga - meaning "those who face death" - and other
militias are supposed to be disbanded and absorbed
into Iraq's various security forces. But in
turbulent northern Iraqi towns like Mosul, Kirkuk,
and Tal Afar, the legendary mountain warriors have
continued to fight - not as members of the Iraqi
Army or national guard, but as pesh merga under the
command of Kurdish political parties.
"Officially, there is no pesh merga, only the Iraqi
Army," says Fareed Asasard, director of the
Kurdistan Strategic Studies Center. "But still, you
can see that the pesh merga remain. Maybe in some
countries they have succeeded in changing militias
into an army, but here, we continue to have pesh
merga."
The pesh merga's role in defending key cities like
Mosul, and the growing influence of Iraq's Kurdish
minority, have revived the delicate question of how
- and where - to use the storied guerrillas. In
recent battles, they proved to be an invaluable
counterinsurgency force, capturing many insurgents
and defending strategic locations. But whether they
remain in Kurdistan, or deploy throughout Iraq,
their future promises to be a politically explosive
issue that could heighten ethnic tensions.
Iraq has two main Kurdish parties: the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan, or PUK, and the Kurdistan
Democratic Party, or KDP. Since 1991, each party has
controlled an area of northern Iraq's semiautonomous
Kurdish region. The two parties fought a four-year
civil war in the mid-1990s, during which the KDP
invited Saddam Hussein's troops into the region to
drive back PUK forces. The two parties have agreed
to unify the Kurdish region under a single
government, but each maintains its own band of armed
pesh merga with separate command structures.
A key question is whether the pesh merga will have
to disband, under the June agreement. If they don't,
that could cause tensions with other forces like the
Shiite Badr Brigade, the private army of the Supreme
Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
But some Kurdish officials have maintained that the
agreement does not apply to them. With Iraq's two
main Kurdish parties gaining clout, it's
increasingly likely that the Kurdish parties will
want to keep some of their pesh merga intact.
The question is where. One option is to keep the
pesh merga where they have always been: strictly to
defend Kurdistan. But as the Kurds gain stature
within Iraq, the Turkish government is cranking up
its alarms against Kurdish independence. A powerful
autonomous region on Turkey's borders, with its own
fighting force, would be hard for Ankara to stomach.
Another option is to disperse the pesh merga
commanders throughout Iraq's Army. That way, the
Iraqi Army gains a trained and loyal fighting force,
skilled in counterinsurgency and guerrilla tactics.
Not all of Iraq's pesh merga are well-trained. But
those who attended the Qala Cholan officer school,
founded after the 1991 Kurdish uprising against
Saddam Hussein, form an experienced officer corps
that Iraq's beleaguered forces need.
"From the very beginning of forming the New Iraqi
Army, they have had problems building these new
units," says Kosrat Rasul, a pesh merga commander
who is now a top PUK leader. "The Americans should
bring the Iraqi leaders and put them in the
forefront, put more Iraqi commanders in charge of
the forces."
But putting Kurdish officers in charge, no matter
how experienced, could also increase ethnic
friction. "What worries me are the consequences
within Iraq," says an Iraqi political analyst who is
close to the Kurdish leadership. "I think it's in
the interests of Iraq to integrate the pesh merga
into the Iraqi Army. But the ... way it's being
done, with the Kurds in the forefront, is
dangerous."
In interview after interview, Kurdish leaders
declare their eagerness to keep fighting - not just
in Kurdistan, but throughout Iraq. "The pesh merga
is not a militia, it's a legitimate fighting force,"
says Dana Ahmed Majid, head of security for the PUK,
hammering his fist in the air for emphasis. "How can
the terrorists be able to operate throughout Iraq,
and we, as Iraqis, not have the right to defend all
of Iraq?"
Pesh merga commanders say that they are waiting for
the central Iraqi government to ask them, publicly
and unequivocally, to fight outside Kurdistan. "If
the Americans and the Iraqi government ask us to
deploy pesh merga, we are ready to do that," says
Gen. Mustapha Said Qadir, the PUK's top pesh merga
commander. "We are ready to deploy them even in
Baghdad."
Others caution that the militia will not be as
effective outside its own turf. Mosul is not within
the Kurdish region, but it is almost half Kurdish,
and even Kurds who don't live there know the city
well. "Don't think that because the pesh merga
succeeded in Mosul, they know Anbar," says Asasard.
"I don't think they would be successful in Fallujah
or Ramadi. Personally, I have never seen Samarra or
Ramadi or Fallujah - but I have seen Mosul."
Some leaders think the best solution would be to use
pesh merga only in Baghdad, a heterogeneous city of
5 million, about 20 percent of whom are Kurdish. "We
are part of the government that rules in Baghdad,
and it's the focal point of the economy, so the pesh
merga should take part in defending it," says Rasul.
"But in other provinces, they should provide their
own security."
An embarrassing incident last December underscored
the difficulty of using pesh merga outside
Kurdistan. Many Iraqi politicians, both Arab and
Kurdish, use the fiercely loyal fighters for their
personal security details. At Baghdad International
Airport, a lunchtime argument turned into a
full-blown melee after Arab and Kurdish guards for
several top politicians started hurling ethnic slurs
at each other.
The pesh merga's successes in Mosul and Tal Afar
have only increased Arab resentment. "The Arabs are
just recruits brought hastily - they flee because
they do not believe in what they are doing," says
the Arab analyst, who asked not to be named. "So the
perception that the Arabs are getting - and not just
Sunni Arabs - is that it's not an Iraqi Army
fighting terrorists, but Kurds fighting against
Arabs."
www.csmonitor.com
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