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Kurdish Force Heads to Baghdad Battle Zone
18.1.2007 |
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January 18, 2007
Sulaimaniyah, Kurdistan Region (Iraq),-- The
atmosphere was tense at the Iraqi National Army base
in Sulaimaniyah, Kurdistan autonomous region
(Northern Iraq), Wednesday as soldiers finished up
last-minute preparations for the dangerous trip down
south to Baghdad.
In a garage, one Kurdish soldier welded a
machine-gun mount for the gun turret on top of his
British-made armored vehicle. Outside, other
soldiers milled around the base, against a stunning
backdrop of snow-covered mountains. They packed gear
and food into the back of Humvees and loaded bullets
into machine ammunition belts.
The 1st battalion of the Iraqi Army's 3rd Brigade,
4th division, consists almost entirely of Kurds.
Until this week, it has been based in the highlands
of Iraqi Kurdistan, which without question in the
safest part of Iraq. But on Monday, the first
Kurdish soldiers began moving south to Baghdad.
Their mission, according to Gen. Anwar Dolani, is to
prop up the Iraqi central government and to stop "a
very bad massacre of the people of Baghdad."
Like many of the soldiers he leads, the general is
former PeshMerga. That's the name for Kurdish rebels
who long fought against successive Arab-dominated
governments in Baghdad. He knows the job ahead will
not be easy.
"The biggest challenge will be the communication,"
he said, speaking in Kurdish. "Also, our guys do not
know the area. And probably 90 percent of our
soldiers do not speak Arabic."
The deployment is extremely unpopular in Iraqi
Kurdistan, where the president of the
semi-autonomous region last year ordered all Iraqi
flags removed and replaced by the flag of Kurdistan. |
A Kurdish soldier proudly wears a wool cap with the
flag of Kurdistan on it. Last year, the President of
the Iraqi Kurdistan region ordered the removal of
Iraqi flags, which many Kurds see as a symbol of
oppression. This Iraqi Army base is one of the only
places where you can see Iraqi flags on display in
the entire Kurdistan region.
Photo: NPR |
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"The public is adamantly against it up here," said
Lt. Col. Dennis Chapman, who commands a small team
of American military advisers attached to the
Kurdish battalion. "It's because there's a great
fear of the ethnic strife down there in Baghdad and
a fear of it somehow making its way up here."
Chapman says there have been desertions. He expects
only several hundred soldiers to show up in Baghdad,
out of a battalion of 1,600.
One who still expects to go is 23-year-old Bakhtiar
Mohammed Ali Sadik.
"Everybody disagrees in my family to go down to
Baghdad to fight, but we have to do this," he said.
The Kurdish soldiers who have agreed to the
deployment, say it is their duty to protect Iraq and
carry out the orders of Jalal Talabani, Iraq's first
Kurdish president. Kurdish officials say their
soldiers should only fight insurgent groups and
terrorists, and avoid getting caught up in the
raging sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shiite
Arabs.
Asos Hardi, editor-in-chief of a Kurdish newspaper,
fears that if the Kurds clash with Shiite Arab
militias, it could spark a new conflict between
Iraq's two main ethnic groups.
"It could become the first ignition for the real
conflict — real war between Kurds and Arabs in
Iraq," Hardi warned.
Wednesday, more than 60 military vehicles barreled
down the highway, leaving
Sulaimaniyah
and heading south toward Baghdad.
At a small roadside gasoline stand, a small crowd
watched, but did not cheer as the convoy drove past.
"Why should we sacrifice ourselves for Arabs who are
killing each other?" asked a man named Serdar Ahmad.
The Arabs, he added, are our enemy.
npr org
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