BAQUBA, Iraq (AFP) - The youngest colonel in
Iraq's revamped army is a slim, grizzled veteran who
already has 15 years of combat experience.
Saman Talabani, 37, gained his combat experience as
a Kurdish peshmerga fighter battling the forces of
ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
But Talabani, who says he is a nephew of Iraqi
President Jalal Talabani, doesn't see himself as a
Kurdish soldier, and doesn't care for the ethnic or
religious identification of his soldiers.
"I am a Kurd, my soldiers are Arabs, but we are all
Iraqis," he said.
Talabani was recently appointed commander of the
Second Brigade, 5th Infantry Division of Iraq's
newborn army.
When US-led forces toppled Saddam in 2003 the former
dictator's army was dissolved.
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Kurdish Saman Talabani, 37, the youngest colonel in
Iraqi army, talks on his radio during a joint raid
operation by US-Iraqi forces in Baquba.
Photo: AFP |
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Iraq's new government is now building a national
army from the ground up, with help from the United
States, and Talabani said he is grateful for US
support.
US officials say building the Iraqi army is key to
allowing the United States to draw down its 136,000
soldiers currently in the country.
Talabani belongs not to President Talabani's
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) but to a rival
political faction, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP)
headed by Massoud Barzani.
However, Talabani said he fights for Iraq, not for
Kurdish independence, showing off a sticker on his
office armoire that reads in Arabic: "I love Iraq."
He speaks fluent English and received an advanced
degree from the Australian military academy last
year.
While in Australia he said he was sometimes asked by
foreign students how he could collaborate with the
Americans, so he burned a CD with photos of Saddam's
crimes to show them the horrors of his regime.
For Iraq, "I want a new army, like any army," he
said.
"An army used to help people, to defend the country,
not for invading another country," he added.
Talabani believes a small, well-trained and
well-equipped army working with allies is more
efficient than the enormous army Saddam recruited.
In any case "after the war against terror ends, we
will need more workers, not more soldiers," he said.
Talabani's brigade of 3,000 men is known as the
"Desert Lions." Its hunting grounds include the
restive province of Diyala, population 1.8 million.
Diyala is located some 400 kilometers (250 miles)
south of his native town of Arbil, one of the main
cities in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region.
Iraq's army, grossly underequipped compared with the
US military, is constantly targeted by insurgents.
But it takes a lot to frighten someone like Talabani,
who is married and has a young son.
Since the creation of the autonomous Kurdish area in
northern Iraq in 1991 Talabani has fought Saddam's
army, Islamic extremist groups and even the
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a leftist Kurdish
underground group active in Turkey.
"We are ready to die. We all die someday, so it is
better to be doing something good," he said.
"We are going to win because we do the right thing.
The wrong has a very short life," he said.
"Time is on our side," he added.
AFP
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