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Lawmaker Confirms Kurd-Shia Clashes In
Baghdad
10.6.2007
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June
10, 2007
BAGHDAD, June 9, -- A May 29 IPS report on
clashes between Kurdish Peshmerga troops and
militiamen of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in
Baghdad has been confirmed by an Iraqi member of
Parliament, representing the Sunni-led Iraqi
Accordance Front (Al-Tawafuq).
Speaking on condition of strict anonymity inside the
heavily-fortified Green Zone of central Baghdad
where the Iraqi government meets, the MP told IPS
that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki "sold
Kirkuk in exchange for Kurdish support for his
collapsing government, and other matters such as not
being in the way of Shiite militias in Baghdad."
He clarified that he believes al-Maliki made a pact
with Kurdish MPs to relinquish plans for trying to
have the central government in Baghdad control
economic and oil issues in the Kurdish controlled
city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq, but did not express
confidence that the deal would be honoured.
All political manoeuvrings these days are "about who
is to take over power in the country," he added,
"while people are getting killed by the hundreds
every day."
Last month the clashes between the Kurdish and Shia
militias occurred in the Amil and Bayaa areas of
southwest Baghdad. The Kurds were manning a
checkpoint that was part of the Baghdad security
plan when they were attacked by the Shia militiamen.
The clashes underscore the tense and extremely
volatile political situation, exposing a very real
possibility that Kurdish-Shiite fighting could
ignite in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, as al-Sadr
has many followers in that mostly Kurdish city.
"Peshmerga Kurdish Forces withdrew from Bayaa and
Amil immediately after Prime Minister al-Maliki's
return from Sulaymaniya and Arbil, cities in
northern Iraq," retired Iraqi army general Mahmood
Sultan told IPS.
Sultan, who now works as a military analyst for
various organisations in Baghdad, told IPS, "It is
obvious that Iraqi leaders have started dividing the
country and high posts. They are taking advantage of
the U.S. administration's despair for any possible
exit from the deteriorating situation."
The first battalion of the second Iraqi army
division, which is a Kurdish Peshmerga militia unit,
withdrew from the Bayaa and Amil quarters while
telling people in the area that they would be
replaced by another Kurdish group.
Residents, however, were surprised to see forces of
the Ministry of Interior taking over the former
Kurdish positions. Ministry of Interior forces are
largely comprised of Shia militias, and have been
accused of operating as death squads.
Immediately after the Kurdish forces withdrew, Shia
militias appeared to invade Sunni mosques and
started killing and evicting Sunnis in the area.
A spokesman for the People of Iraq Assembly, led by
Adnan al-Dulaimy, condemned the reappearance of
Shiite militias
and their "brutal attacks" against Sunni mosques.
"Faatah Pasha and other mosques are now occupied
with Shiite militia men under cover of Iraqi
police," read a statement from the group addressing
the matter, "And the government is fully responsible
for the current situation and any future disasters
which could take place in the coming days."
Shock waves from the incident are already shaking up
the government.
Islamic party senior member and deputy chief of the
security committee in the Iraqi Parliament, Abdul
Karim al-Samarra'e, said at a news conference that
he contacted Minister of Interior Jawad al-Bolani
and National Security Advisor Muaffaq al-Rubaie
about Shiite militias invading southwest Baghdad and
the urgent need to react to the withdrawal of the
Kurdish unit.
"I received no response," he told reporters, "and
this has led me to suspend my post at the committee
until the situation is corrected."
Shia militia activity continues to be high across
Baghdad, but has worsened since the Kurdish unit was
removed from the aforementioned areas.
"Militias attacked our area in Saydiya near Bayaa on
Thursday," a lawyer who lives off the main
commercial street of Saydiya, speaking on condition
of anonymity, told IPS. "They started their usual
business of detaining people in order to execute
them later, but the God-blessed resistance fighters
appeared to teach them a lesson and so they escaped
like scared rats."
Many Iraqis in the area believe that the combination
of an impotent Iraqi government and ongoing
political deals are only worsening the already
catastrophic condition their country is in.
"It is certainly one part of the deal between
[Kurdistan president Massoud] Barzani, [Iraqi
President Jalal] Talibani and Maliki," Yassir al-Ani,
a journalist who lives in Saydiya, told IPS. "We
never trusted the Kurds to be a positive factor in
the equation and we were positive that they were
brought to Baghdad just to support Americans in
their effort to defeat the resistance and to gain
more privileges in the new arrangements for dividing
the country," he said.
Some Iraqi analysts believe the incident and the
resulting political machinations are a reflection of
the crisis the U.S. military faces in Baghdad and
shows there is no single group capable of achieving
control of the ever-worsening situation in the
capital city.
"All U.S. allies could not have full control of any
part of Iraq and so they have become more a problem
than a solution to the dilemmas the U.S. army is
facing in the disturbed country," Iraqi political
analyst Maki al-Nazzal told IPS.
"The only way out of all this is to talk to the
right people, who certainly are not those in the
Iraqi Parliament, but then again that would mean an
obvious sign of defeat for the American project in
Iraq and the area," he added.
UPI
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