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Post-US, a military unit staffed by former enemies raises
hopes for Kirkuk |
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Post-US, a military unit staffed by former
enemies raises hopes for Kirkuk
19.8.2011
By Baram Subhi |
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August 19, 2011
KIRKUK, Iraq's border with Kurdistan region,
— As US forces slowly begin to withdraw from Iraq,
there are fears that ethnic and sectarian conflicts
will arise again. In Kirkuk, a long conflicted
state, they’re pinning hopes on a unit called the
Golden Lions.
The Golden Lions unit is composed of almost 400
members from three different security forces
operating in Kirkuk: the Iraqi army, the local
police forces and the Iraqi Kurdish military force
known as the Peshmerga. The tripartite force, which
eventually hopes to increase its number to 1,000,
was the idea of Ray Odierno, former commander of US
forces in Iraq, who hoped a joint force like this
one might help put an end to ethnic clashes in the
area.
Kirkuk has been the scene for many of these types of
clashes as the oil-rich state, producing up to one
million barrels of oil per day, is disputed
territory. Its ownership is contested by the Iraqi
government in Baghdad and the Iraqi Kurdish
administration in the semi-autonomous state of Iraqi
Kurdistan.
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The “Golden Lion” a mixed squad
of Arab and Kurds put together to secure disputed
areas where people of different ethnicities.
March 8, 2011 Photo US Army. |
Iraqi Kurds see the area as their own and in fact,
many Kurds used to live there – a census from 1957
records the population as at least a third Kurdish.
However former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s regime
practiced a concerted policy of what has been
described as Arabisation of oil rich areas in the
north. This saw hundreds of thousands of Kurdish
families deported and ethnic Arab families brought
in to take their place. The tug of war over Kirkuk’s
geography has continued even after the 2003 US-led
invasion that saw Hussein’s regime toppled – and
analysts believe that if a civil war was to start in
Iraq, then this northern state might well be one of
the flashpoints.
Now that the US soldiers, who once formed a sort of
buffer between the Arabs and the Kurds, are leaving,
the idea is that the Golden Lions, most of whom
completed their training with US troops at the end
of June this year, help ameliorate their withdrawal.
The lion is an Iraqi symbol of fighting strength and
although the three different forces will continue to
wear their own uniforms – the Peshmerga wear khaki,
the police wear blue and the Iraqi military wear tan
- they will all have an armband that shows their
membership of the Golden Lions.
In early 2010, the unit undertook raids targeting
insurgents’ hideouts and was also deployed at
several checkpoints in Kirkuk under supervision of
US forces. As of August 2011, the US forces have
taken a back seat and withdrawn from the security
checkpoints. Before they did so though, they
requested that Kirkuk’s checkpoints be handed over
to the Golden Lions in order to ensure ongoing
cooperation between the three different security
forces.
“It shows that a joint action is possible,” Colonel
Michael Pappal, the US military commander in Kirkuk,
said. Lieutenant James Maceo, who trained the Golden
Lions, boasts that the troops sleep in the same
tents together and live and eat together as well.
Maceo said he had not noticed any hostilities
between the different groups.
The Kurdish commander of the Golden Lions, Colonel
Salahuddin Sabir, told Niqash that there were still
many issues to be overcome. “Among these is the lack
of adequate experience, the limited number of troops
and the absence of logistical support and necessary
supplies such as cars and fuel,” said Sabir, who was
currently negotiating with local authorities to
ensure funding. “The number of the troops is too low
to undertake responsibility for [Kirkuk’s]
checkpoints as well as for the military patrols that
are needed to maintain order.”
Captain Mohammed Ahmad, a Golden Lion member, a Kurd
and former member of the Peshmerga, said that
despite the troubled history in the area, there were
no ethnic conflicts within the unit. “We treat Iraqi
soldiers the same way we treat our Peshmerga men,”
said Ahmad, who had lost seven of his family in
Iraqi campaigns against the Kurdish in the 1980s.
“But,” he admitted, “it is difficult to forget
historical animosities in Iraq.” And he added that
he wasn’t so sure about the ability of the Golden
Lions to survive after the US withdrawal.
The chairman of the Kirkuk council, Hasim Touran,
has expressed similar fears: “The absence of a
common political vision for the management of
Kirkuk’s security raises fear among all concerned
parties.”
In an attempt to at least partially dispel those
fears, a new counter terrorism centre was
inaugurated in Kirkuk in early August. The centre
would be staffed by Iraqi police and army as well as
Kurdish forces: in this case,www.ekurd.netit
would be Iraqi Kurdistan’s Asayish force, who are a
sort of intelligence agency where the Kurdish
Peshmerga, who take part in the Golden Lions, are
more like a general military force. Again, it would
be another attempt to manage Kirkuk’s security
situation after the US withdrawal.
Meanwhile politician Hussein Saleh al-Jibouri,
believes that the counter-terrorism centre and the
Golden Lions style of military unit can only be
temporary solutions. Al-Jibouri, a strong opponent
of the extension of US troops’ stay in Iraq,
believes the best thing to do would be to form a
balanced security force made up of Kirkuk’s people,
and supervised by the Iraqi federal government.
Whether his Iraqi Kurdish compatriots agree with
him, is another question altogether.
Copyright ©, respective
author or news agency,
niqash.org
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