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After the fall of Saddam the peshmerga quickly took
control over Kirkuk. After Turkey expressed alarm at
the possibility of Kurdish control of the Kirkuk oil
fields (and the resulting wealth) the Kurdish
militia withdrew to barracks outside the city.
However, they have remained a presence in and around
the city since that time. The Kurdish militias have
also systematically infiltrated the Iraqi Army units
in the Kurdistan (north of Iraq).
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Kurdish leaders
have inserted more than 10,000 of their
militia members into Iraqi army divisions in
Kurdistan (northern Iraq) to lay the
groundwork to swarm south, seize the Kurdish
oil-rich city of Kirkuk and possibly half of
Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, and secure
the borders of an independent Kurdistan. |
While the Kurds
reinforce their control of the Iraqi Army, the Shia
militias have begun to pour into Kirkuk in recent
weeks and months:
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Hundreds of Shiite
Muslim militiamen have deployed in recent
weeks to this restive city -- widely
considered the most likely flash point for an
Iraqi civil war -- vowing to fight any attempt
to shift control over Kirkuk to the
Kurdish-governed north, according to U.S.
commanders and diplomats, local police and
politicians. |
The Shia militias in
Kirkuk along with the Sunni insurgents in and around
Kerkuk are bound together in this struggle as Arabs
versus the Kurdish militias. The maelstrom in Kirkuk
is a peculiar confluence of oil, wealth, Arab and
Kurdish nationalism. Ever since oil was first
discovered in Kirkuk in the 1920s, Arabs, Kurds and
Turkmen have been vying for control of this city's
riches. Starting in the 1960s the ruling Baath Party
began a process of ethnic cleansing in Kirkuk. This
ethnic cleansing, called "Arabization", forced
Kurds, Turkmen and other ethnic groups from their
homes and replaced them with ethnic Arabs from the
south of Iraq:
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Turkmens and Kurds
alike were suppressed by the aggressive
Arabism of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.
Official ''Arabization'' began in the 1960's
and accelerated significantly in 1975, when
the Iraqi regime began forcibly removing tens
of thousands of Kurds, Turkmens and Assyrian
Christians from Kirkuk and bringing in Arabs
to take their place. This Arabization was
chiefly motivated by the government's wish to
consolidate its grip on the oil-rich and
fertile region -- and to pre-empt a gradual
demographic takeover of the city by the Kurds.
Under Arabization, as many as 250,000
non-Arabs, mostly Kurds, were expelled north
into Iraqi Kurdistan. Their former land titles
were declared invalid, and ownership was
assumed by the government, which rented the
land to Arabs. |
After the fall of Saddam
the Kurds have reasserted control over Kirkuk. The
Kurds consider Kirkuk to be the capital of a greater
Kurdistan spanning from Turkey to Iran. The Kurds
are prepared to fight in order to gain control of
the city:
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"Kirkuk is
Kurdistan; it does not belong to the Arabs,"
Hamid Afandi, the minister of Peshmerga for
the Kurdistan Democratic Party, one of the two
major Kurdish groups, said. "If we can resolve
this by talking, fine, but if not, then we
will resolve it by fighting." |
The Arabs, Shia and
Sunni, are not prepared to hand over Kirkuk to the
Kurds without a fight:
In a meeting here
last week, Sadr's representative in the city,
Abdul Karim Khalifa, told U.S. officials that
more armed loyalists were on the way and that
as many as 7,000 to 10,000 Shiite residents
were prepared to fight alongside the Mahdi
Army if called upon. Legions more Shiite
militiamen would push north from Baghdad's
Sadr City slum, he said, according to Wise.
"His message was essentially that any idea of
Kirkuk going to the Kurds will mean a fight,"
Wise said. "He said that their policy here was
different from in other places, that they are
not going to attack coalition forces because
their only enemy here is the Kurds." |
The Shia militias in
Kirkuk are currently outnumbered significantly by
the peshmerga. However, any battle for Kirkuk is
sure to draw in forces from Turkey and Iran. Both of
these countries have Kurdish minorities that aspire
for a greater Kurdistan. Turkey and Iran will both
be concerned that a Kurdish controlled Kirkuk will
give the Kurds the wealth needed to wage a war for a
greater Kurdistan.
However, under years of American and British
protection, and the resulting autonomy, the Kurds of
northern Iraq have worked steadily toward a Kurdish
homeland. They are determined to make the dream of a
greater Kurdistan a reality and any such state must
include Kirkuk and its oil fields. The stage is thus
set for a major confrontation in Kirkuk over the
wealth of Iraq. Shia, Sunni, Kurd and Turkmen of
Iraq are about to rendezvous with destiny in Kirkuk.
DocStrangelove.com
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