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Israel Reportedly Training Iraqi Kurdish Forces
5.2.2010
By Avi Yellin |
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February
5, 2010
TEL AVIV,
Israel, —
According to recent
media reports, Israeli military and intelligence
agents are currently operating in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Their primary role, according to reports, is to
train elite Kurdish commandos in guerilla warfare
and anti-terror tactics. The Kurds, whose country is
currently occupied by Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria,
have reportedly been accepting Israeli assistance in
their fight for independence, as they did many years
ago.
Fearing an al-Qaeda backlash, Kurdish leaders have
denied cooperating with the Jewish state and have
refused to even issue comments on the matter.
When the New Yorker asked Mark Regev, then spokesman
for Israel's Embassy in Washington, to comment on
allegations of Israeli-Kurdish cooperation in 2004,www.ekurd.netRegev
denied the claims, telling the magazine that “the
story is simply untrue and the relevant governments
know it’s untrue.”
But American intelligence officials at the time
sought to expose Israel’s assistance to the Kurds.
“They [the Israelis] think they have to be there,” a
senior CIA official told the New Yorker, adding that
Israel’s presence in northern Iraq is widely
acknowledged in the United States intelligence
community.
Apart from rumors of Israel training Kurdish
commandos, Israeli-Kurdish relations have expanded
considerably in recent years. In July 2003 the
Israeli government reversed its embargo on Iraq,
allowing trade between the two peoples including the
export of Israeli military products to the Kurds.
Kurdish commandos have also reportedly accompanied
Israeli operatives across the Iraq-Iran border in
recent years to install sensory devices meant to
monitor suspected Iranian nuclear facilities.
Like Jews, Kurds are a non-Arab indigenous Middle
Eastern people seeking independence in their
ancestral homeland. Active Israeli support towards a
free Kurdistan is seen as a natural policy by many
as well as a pragmatic one. “By aligning with the
Kurds, Israel gains eyes and ears in Iran, Iraq and
Syria,” a former Israeli intelligence officer told
the New Yorker.
Recent media reports have said that Hamas is
investigating the possibility of Israeli
infiltration into its ranks to explain how the
murder of Hamas terrorist leader al Mabhouh in Dubai
could have been planned and executed by Israel,www.ekurd.netas
Hamas claimed. Israel did not comment on the murder.
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
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