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The local Kurdish media is reporting that four former spies were re-elected to the leadership of the Jalal Talabani’s PUK. Various Kurdish media sources are reporting this story, which has shaken the PUK grassroots organisation and Kurdish society, prompting outrage and statements that both spies and patriots are working together to lead the PUK. According to local reports, Saadi Ahmad Pira, Aso Almani, Mustafa Chawrash and Shalaw Ali Askari were discovered to be working for the former Iraqi regime while acting as high ranking officials within the PUK. Dismay and anger has been the response of many Kurds upon hearing...

Twenty Bodies Found in Tigris Near Baghdad SLOBODAN LEKIC, Associated Press Writer Insurgents assassinated a Kurdish member of parliament and police found 20 bodies shot to death and dumped in the Tigris River north of the capital, where there was no major violence Sunday for the first time in five days. Faris Nasir Hussein, a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, was killed along with his brother and their driver in an ambush 50 miles north of Baghdad. A second Kurdish lawmaker, Haidar Shanoun, was wounded in the attack near the town of Dujail. Police and PUK officials...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents killed a Kurdish member of Iraqi parliament, his brother and the driver of his car and wounded a second lawmaker in an ambush on their convoy north of Baghdad , police and officials said Sunday. Faris Nasir Hussein, a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, was killed in the attack Saturday night, along with his brother and their driver, said Peshro Ibrahim, a National Assembly official. Ibrahim said another PUK lawmaker, Haidar Shanoun, was wounded in the same attack near the town of Dujail, 50 miles north of Baghdad.

BAGHDAD, Sept. 5 (Xinhuanet) -- Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said Monday that he and the other top Kurdish leaders have agreed to changes on the draft constitution concerning the country's ties with the Arab League (AL). "We have decided to support the draft and agreed to some changes which we think necessary for the country's ties with the Arab League, as Iraq is a founding member in the AL," Talabani told reporters in a news conference. Talabani was referring to a statement issued after a meeting between the political offices of the two major Kurdish parties in northern Iraq, the...

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan’s security services “Asaysh” has arrested some former members of the militant group, Ansar al-Islam, reported the Sulaimani based Kurdish newspaper, Aso, in its today’s edition. Aso said that sources within “Asaysh” have said on the condition of anonymity that following the twin suicide bombings in Hewler (Irbil) and Halabja, many former members of Ansar al-Islam and some current members of the Kurdistan Islamic Group (Komall) were arrested for interrogation.

Barham Salih: We are not ready to compromise on "Article 58" Saturday, 11 June 2005 In an unannounced visit the Iraqi Planning Minister and the former Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Suleimani, Dr. Barham Salih arrived in Kirkuk, reported the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan's online news journal "PUKMedia.com". 11/06/2005 TheKurdistani.com In an unannounced visit the Iraqi Planning Minister and the former Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Suleimani, Dr. Barham Salih arrived in Kirkuk, reported the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan's online news journal "PUKMedia.com". Dr. Barham Salih met the Kurdish governer of Kirkuk, Abdulrahman Mustafa...

The two main Kurdish parties in Iraq have given their conditional go-ahead for a parliamentary coalition with interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, well-placed Kurdish sources have revealed. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) asked, in swap, for Allawi’s backing for PUK leader Jalal Talabani to be elected president, the sources told Al-Quds Press Friday, February 11. During a surprise visit by Allawi to Arbil on Thursday, February 10, Kurdish officials further asked that Arabs in Kirkuk be regarded as “refugees” who must be deported gradually to allow the return of Kurds allegedly forced to...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

KIRKUK: A policeman was shot dead on Friday in Kirkuk, where the bullet-riddled body of a Kurdish peshmerga fighter was discovered, Iraqi police said. The shooting took place in an area of the city where tensions are high between Arabs, Kurds and Turks, and where police units have come under frequent attack. Captain Sarhad Qader also said police found the body of a peshmerga of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in the south of Kirkuk with several bullet wounds in the head and abdomen. In violence elsewhere, 13 people were wounded in clashes between insurgents and US soldiers Friday...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A car bomb exploded Tuesday in central Baghdad outside the offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, killing three people and injuring 20, the military said. A roadside bomb also exploded near the U.S. military base in Beiji in northern Iraq, killing 11 Iraqis — including seven members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps — and wounding 23 others. Two U.S. 1st Infantry Division Soldiers were wounded and evacuated to a combat hospital, together with 16 Iraqis who were hurt. The Baghdad blast ripped through the building in the early afternoon, shortly after a party attended by...

Yemeni Arrested in Connection with Iraq Bombs, TV Reports ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - Kurdish television said Iraqi police in Kirkuk had arrested a man with a Yemeni passport who they believe may be connected with twin suicide bombings that killed more than 100 people in Iraq (news - web sites)'s northern Kurdish region. Suicide bombers attacked the offices of Kurdistan's two main political parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (KDP), in Arbil Sunday. Kurdistan Television said late Wednesday that a taxi driver in Kirkuk, 50 miles south of Arbil, had contacted police there after...

Wolfowitz: Iraq Attacks Show U.S. Efforts Succeeding Reuters / 2-02-04 By Tabassum Zakaria KIRKUK, Iraq (Reuters) - Attacks in Iraq (news - web sites) like the Arbil suicide bombings show efforts to build a new Iraq are succeeding and that extremists are using violence to stop the process, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said on Monday. "The most discouraging news in the last couple of the days is the bombing in Arbil," said Wolfowitz, who is on his third trip to Iraq since the war ended last April. "They took advantage of the Muslim holiday when people relaxed," he...

The US-led coalition in Iraq has vowed to punish those responsible for coordinated suicide bombings which have killed at least 56 people in the northern city of Arbil. The twin blasts injured more than 100 other people. In a statement, Iraq's US administrator, Paul Bremer, described the attack as cowardly and said those responsible for the acts would be brought to justice. The twin bombings took place within minutes of each other at the headquarters of rival Kurdish political parties - the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). The offices were crowded with people visiting the...

By Shamal Aqrawi ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - Two suicide bombers strapped with explosives blew themselves up in nearly simultaneous attacks on offices of two Kurdish parties in Iraq Sunday, killing and wounding as many as 200 people, officials said. "According to what I have been told the number of wounded and martyrs at the two headquarters may approach 200," an official of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) said. Among the dead were the deputy governor of Arbil province and the city's police commander, witnesses said. Party sources said at least some of those killed were senior officials. The blasts...

Iraq Blasts May Have Killed More Than 100 6 minutes ago By SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI, Associated Press Writer IRBIL, Iraq - Two suicide bombers blew themselves up at the offices of two rival Kurdish parties in this northern Iraqi city. Kurdish officials said casualties were still being counted, but one minister said the death toll could rise above 100. The dead included the governor of the region, ministers in the local administration and several senior officials, Mohammed Ihsan, the human rights minister for the Kurdish regional government told The Associated Press. "These figures are estimates but I believe about 60 people...

ON CHRISTMAS DAY in Erbil--the semi-official capital of the semi-official entity known as Iraqi Kurdistan--over 100 delegates from across northern Iraq gathered in a meeting hall that resembled nothing so much as an inner city high school auditorium, complete with rows of battered faux-leather chairs and dim fluorescent lighting. An improbably huge Kurdish flag was draped across the rear of the stage--three stripes of red, white, and green, with a golden sun at the center. The assembly was a cross-section of Iraqi society: a bespectacled professor of law from Sulaimaniya in a prim three-piece suit; a Yezidi doctor from Sinjar;...

According to a report in last weekend's Sunday Express in Britain, Saddam Hussein was captured by U.S. troops only after he had been taken prisoner by Kurdish forces, drugged and abandoned ready for American soldiers to recover him. Quoting an unnamed senior British military officer, the Sunday Express recounted that Saddam came into the hands of the Kurdish Patriotic Front after being betrayed to the group by a member of the al-Jabour tribe, whose daughter had been raped by Saddam's son Uday, leading to a blood feud. The intelligence officer told the paper that Saddam was held prisoner by a...

Washington's claims that brilliant US intelligence work led to the capture of Saddam Hussein are being challenged by reports sourced in Iraq's Kurdish media claiming that its militia set the circumstances in which the US merely had to go to a farm identified by the Kurds to bag the fugitive former president. The first media account of the December 13 arrest was aired by a Tehran-based news agency. American forces took Saddam into custody around 8.30pm local time, but sat on the news until 3pm the next day. However, in the early hours of Sunday, a Kurdish language wire service...

LONDON, (AFP) - Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) was captured by US troops only after he had been taken prisoner by Kurdish forces, drugged and abandoned ready for American soldiers to recover him, a British Sunday newspaper said. Saddam came into the hands of the Kurdish Patriotic Front after being betrayed to the group by a member of the al-Jabour tribe, whose daughter had been raped by Saddam's son Uday, leading to a blood feud, reported the Sunday Express, which quoted an unnamed senior British military intelligence officer. The newspaper said the full story of events leading up to...

London, Dec 21. (PTI): Ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was captured by Kurdish forces, then drugged and handed over to the American forces as a revenge against the rape of a tribal chief's daughter by the tyrant's psychopathic eldest son Uday, a media report said today. The full story of the fallen dictator's capture last Saturday in a "spider hole" near his birthplace of Tikrit exposes the version peddled by Americans as incomplete. According to the report in The Sunday Express, Saddam had already been handed over to Kurdish forces, who then brokered a deal with US commanders. He was...

LONDON, (AFP) - Saddam Hussein was captured by US troops only after he had been taken prisoner by Kurdish forces, drugged and abandoned ready for American soldiers to recover him, a British Sunday newspaper said. Saddam came into the hands of the Kurdish Patriotic Front after being betrayed to the group by a member of the al-Jabour tribe, whose daughter had been raped by Saddam's son Uday, leading to a blood feud, reported the Sunday Express, which quoted an unnamed senior British military intelligence officer. The newspaper said the full story of events leading up to the ousted Iraqi president's...

Saddam’s capture was the best present George Bush could have hoped for, and then Gaddafi handed a propaganda gift to Blair. But nothing’s ever that simple It was exactly one week ago at 3.15pm Baghdad time, when a beaming Paul Bremer made that now-famous announce ment: “Ladies and gentlemen, we got him!” Saddam Hussein: High Value Target Number One. The Glorious Leader. The Lion of Babylon had been snared. Iraq’s most wanted – the ace of spades – had become little more than an ace in the hole. In Baghdad’s streets, Kalashnikov bullets rained down in celebration. In the billets...

A crackdown on Al Qaida in northern Iraq by pro-U.S. Kurdish forces has confirmed the transfer of hundreds sleeper agents into the region by way of Iran. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan has arrested at least five suspected insurgents from the Al Qaida-aligned Ansar Al Islam. Sources in the PUK, led by Jalal Talabani, said the suspects were planning to carry out a series of strikes against U.S. and Kurdish interests in northern Iraq. The Ansar plans included a plot to bomb a celebration for Talabani in wake of his appointment as president of the interim Iraqi Governing Council. This...

Better late than never. As the foreign minister Abdullah Gul revealed in this space last week, postwar public opinion has changed in Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to reassert that secular Muslim nation's historic position as America's stalwart strategic ally. At the moment the coalition most needs a boost, leaders of the powerful Turkish Army are now ready to provide a division of peacekeeping troops. Yesterday, the Turkish Parliament approved — by a whopping 2-to-1 majority — the government's proposal to take an active part in stabilizing Iraq. Unlike Russia and Pakistan (our allies in name only), and...

Biyara, controlled by militant Islamists until the US-led war, is wary of news that such groups may be returning. By Scott Peterson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor BIYARA, IRAQ - The merchant shuddered when told that Islamic militants of Ansar Al Islam - the Al Qaeda-backed group dispersed by American bombs last March - may be returning to Iraq. "If they come to my orchard, I will shoot them myself!" vows Shaho Abdulkarim, a merchant-smuggler with a perfect moustache. Such a visceral reaction is common in this village on Iraq's northeastern border with Iran, where Ansar imposed...

Fresh Islami Ansar militants slip into northern Iran to assassinate PUK officials 18/08/2003 02:55 More than 1,000 al Qaeda operatives including Arabs and Afghans as well as other Middle Eastern radicals have slipped into Iraq through the rugged mountains bordering Iran in recent months adding to the terrorist threat against U.S. forces, diplomatic sources told the Turkish Daily News on Friday. The extremists have reportedly traveled from Afghanistan to Iraq via Iran. The TDN was told dozens of such extremists have been taken into custody by the forces of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in recent weeks but still...

Kurdish leaders have refused a US request to allow 12,000 Turkish troops through northern Iraq for a possible peacekeeping assignment in the city of Falluja, a Kurdish official said on Wednesday. Adel Murad, head of the political office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), said the request came at the weekend from General John Abizaid, head of US central command, in a meeting in the northern city of Mosul with the leaders of PUK and its occasional rival, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). Mr Murad said any introduction of Turkish troops into Iraq would damage Kurdish support for the...

Iraqi Kurds Make Move Toward CooperationBy SABAH JERGESASSOCIATED PRESS BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The two main Iraqi Kurdish groups moved to unite the administration of their two competing strongholds in the Kurdish enclave of northern Iraq, confirming Saturday they will present an outline by month's end on a single government. Leaders of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, or KDP, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK - the two armed political groups running Kurdish northern Iraq - said they've set up a six-member committee to complete the plan. "It was a sense of responsibility that persuaded us that this was...

Saturday night, February 8, in the Iraqi-Kurdish city of Suleimaniyeh, al Qaeda and Iraqi military intelligence fired their first shot of the US-Iraq war - by assassination. They used their shared surrogate, the extremist Kurdish Ansar al-Islam of northeast Iraq, to eliminate the top command of the pro-American Patriotic Union of Iraqi Kurdistan’s fighting militia. The three-way collaboration between Baghdad, al Qaeda and the Kurdish fundamentalist terrorists provided a live and incontrovertible smoking gun. The price was heavy, a grave setback for US war plans. DEBKAfile’s military analysts compare the murders to the assassination of the Afghan Northern Alliance commander...

<p>The former stronghold of the militant Islamic group Ansar al-Islam looked like a ghost town yesterday, after die-hard fighters fled into a network of caves and bunkers in the rugged, mountainous terrain along the Iranian border.</p> <p>The militants were chased out Friday under heavy bombardment by US special forces troops and Kurdish soldiers. Fighting resumed at dusk yesterday amid reports US forces were under fire on a ridge above Sargat, another village held by the guerrillas.</p>

Kurds go it alone with international oil dealsLocal authorities ignore US administration and seek to lure major companies with generous contracts Andrew Buncombe in Washington Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq are offering hugely lucrative oil deals to European and American companies without consulting either the US administration in Baghdad or any other Iraqi groups. The move threatens to raise new problems over the future ownership of Iraq's vast oil reserves. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which controls the Sulaymaniyah region as part of the regional government of Kurdish Iraq, has in recent weeks started seeking investment from international companies...

BAGHDAD - A council of up to nine Iraqis will probably lead the country’s still unformed interim government through the coming months, the American civil administrator said on Monday.Retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner also said he expects the newly appointed L. Paul Bremer, former head of the State Department’s counter terrorism office, to take charge of the political process within the US postwar administration.“What you may see is as many as seven, eight, nine leaders working together to provide leadership,” Garner said. He added, though, that he didn’t know how the collective leadership would function specifically.The Iraqi leaders Garner referred...

KIRKUK, IRAQ – Seven years ago, a customer walked intoFalah Abdulrahman Mohamad Salih's television store and insisted on a barter: One of your televisions for one of my satellite dishes. Under Saddam Hussein, who kept an almost Orwellian lid on information, satellite dishes were banned. So Mr. Salih tried to hide the round, white saucer inside some laundry lines. A few days later at 4 a.m, security police came to his door and, with his wife and children crying, hauled him off to prison. The six grueling months there in 1996 makes these days all the sweeter. Salih was the...

During the war he was the oddball public face of America's enemy Iraq, but now there are claims that Mohammad Said Sahaf, the former information minister, cannot get himself arrested. The minister, nicknamed "Comical Ali" for his eccentric denials that Iraqi forces were being overrun, is said to have tried to turn himself in to the Americans. But they refused, as he was not on their list of the 55 most wanted members of Saddam Hussein's regime. A senior Kurdish official said that Sahaf had been holed up at a relative's house in central Baghdad for a week near a...

MOSUL, Iraq - Kurdish paramilitary forces have been given an ultimatum: Halt armed patrols around Mosul by Monday, or the U.S. Army will stop them by force. Col. Joe Anderson, commander of the 101st Airborne's 2nd Brigade, said his troops are prepared to enforce the edict against fighters from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party. Militia members will be allowed to keep their weapons at their headquarters or militia compounds but will be banned from bringing them on patrol, Anderson said. Anderson said Kurdish patrols carrying weapons after 10 a.m. Monday will be forcibly disarmed. Militia...

ISTANBUL, Turkey - Turkey's foreign ministry summoned the U.S. ambassador Friday to explain a reported reference by the U.S. official in charge of rebuilding Iraq to a northern Iraqi city as Kurdish. Turkish media reported that retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner had characterized Kirkuk as a "Kurdish city" during talks in northern Iraq earlier this week. Ambassador Robert Pearson told reporters he discussed the issue with officials at the foreign ministry Friday. Pearson said he did not know if Garner had made such a statement, but reiterated U.S. assurances that the city, that sits in one of the world's richest...

Nothing follows....looking for hard copy.

The top American civilian administrator for Iraq met today in northern Iraq with the two main Kurdish leaders and called for a new Iraqi government to be a "mosaic," fairly representing all Iraqis. The official, Jay Garner, a retired Army lieutenant general, received a notably warmer greeting in the north than he had the day before in Baghdad, with cheers, hugs and a shower of flower petals reflecting his efforts in the early 1990's to help create the thriving Kurdish autonomous area of northeastern Iraq. "The new government of Iraq will have one leader, one army, one government," General Garner...

Americans accused of turning blind eye to killings by Kurds By Kim Sengupta in Kirkuk 23 April 2003 A bitter conflict is unfolding in northern Iraq between two minority communities, with the Americans accused of turning a blind eye to killings and ethnic cleansing. The Kurds, the victims of oppression by Saddam Hussein and previous regimes in Baghdad, are being blamed for a violent campaign of intimidation against the Turkoman population. Organisations representing the Turkomans say they want British and European troops to protect them because the Americans are acquiescing in what is taking place. Kirkuk, a city with a...

THE last newspaper to roll off the presses at al-Iraq printworks in Baghdad carried a picture of Saddam Hussein clutching a rifle and urging citizens to take up arms against the American tanks rolling into the city. The newspaper that goes on sale today bears a very different image: the smiling face of Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish leader and Saddam’s arch-enemy, crowing over the number of former regime leaders being rounded up by the Americans. Two weeks ago, this plant produced four of Iraq’s official state newspapers, from the sycophantic al-Jamhouria, documenting every minor official presidential visit and rendezvous, to...

JAY GARNER, the retired US general appointed to run postwar Iraq, received a hero’s welcome yesterday when he returned to the region where he is fêted for helping to create a save haven for Kurds after the first Gulf War. Crowds of students cheered the 65-year-old head of the Pentagon’s Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance for Iraq as he arrived in Sulaimaniyah, providing a stark contrast with his reception in Baghdad a day earlier. But even as Kurds assured General Garner that they wanted autonomy within Iraq, and he in turn praised the 12-year Kurdish experiment with democracy as...

The retired US general charged with forming an interim administration in Iraq has arrived in the north of the country on the second day of a tour around the country. Jay Garner received a rapturous welcome from crowds in Sulaymaniyah - in contrast to a lukewarm reception in Baghdad on Monday. He was sprinkled with flower petals and some people's eyes filled with tears of emotion as he walked through the streets, reports our correspondent in the city, Clare Marshall. Mr Garner is remembered in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq as the man who, 12 years ago, set up a safe haven...

What the Kurds WantBy Barham SalihThe Wall Street Journal | April 22, 2003 George Bush and Tony Blair are icons for Iraqi Kurds for overthrowing an evil regime. We are proud that Kurds fought side by side with the coalition forces. According to the Americans, our Kurdish soldiers gave an excellent account of themselves. There is no better motivation on the battlefield than to know that freedom is ahead, rather than some Fedayeen thug behind. In parts of Iraq there has been inevitable disorder. The Baath Party pushed itself into every corner of life. Its defeat has led to a...

Far from moving freely forward on the road to freedom and democracy, post-Saddam Iraq is seemingly heading towards conflicts and political uncertainty. Added to the emerging elements of ethnic and political strife in Iraq's northern part, its southern region, with its large number of Shi'ites is becoming a scene for a high-stakes rivalry among the major Shi'ite contenders. The outcome of this struggle will have a determining impact on the nature of the Iraqi political system, given that Shi'ites account for 60 percent of Iraq's population. The main "battle ground" has been the holy city of Najaf where the powerful...

<p>Mr Chalabi is a US Defense Department favourite. Leader of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), opposition group in exile that the US and UK have backed since after the 1991 Gulf War.</p> <p>He has the support of Washington hawks and the Department of Defense, and was moved into Iraq last week by the US military.</p> <p>Analysts say that as a Shia, even a secular Shia, he arouses the mistrust of the former Sunni ruling class of Iraq.</p> <p>The Iraqi National Accord was set up in 1990 by the Iraqi-born Shia Iyad Alawi.</p>

Kirkuk is liberated from Saddam's rule, but old ethnic tensions threaten to engulf it in new horrors, writes Ed O'Loughlin. Nobody knows how many people live in Kirkuk. The size of the population and its ethnic breakdown are so sensitive that every census since 1957 has been rigged or suppressed. Three races claim this town as their own - Arab, Turkoman and Kurd - and the oil fields on its fringe make it a prize worth having. Each of the three is armed, each is frightened of the others, and each believes it can call on outside forces. Don't let...

KADEK is the new name of PKK. This is a Kurdish terrorist organization, listed as such by the US DoS. This organization has ties to the leaders of the PUK nad the KDP in northern Irak. Turkey has been exposed to terrorism for years that has never been experienced before in any country. This terrorism has shown itself in various forms. Unfortunately, in the end thousands of our innocent people have lost their lives (approx 36000), thousands of people have become disabled, and economic loss worth of millions (that's really billions) of dollars has been realized. Foreword Part 1 -...

KURDISH authorities in newly-liberated Kirkuk yesterday secured their regained territory with American forces, effectively marginalising the Turkish threat while maintaining their own power base in the city and all but halting civil unrest. Looting and violence had already stopped as US troops from the 173rd Airborne Division deployed around key Kirkuk installations including the oilfields and airport on Thursday night, halted by police units from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) who entered the city behind special peshmerga teams with the task of with securing hospitals, communication and business centres. “We made a plan for the taking of Kirkuk over...

The General Staff of Turkey has given the Turkish Armed Forces the "operation pre-start" command, which is the highest level of alert preceding the "operation start." All leaves were canceled. Commanders were asked to do one last inspection of their groups and report. Starting today, border troops will operate on a 24 hour basis. Commanders will not be able to leave their posts. All personell and their equipment will remain at a 24 hour level of readiness. If Talabani won't leave, we'll enter with the Turks Following the entry of Talabani's PUK forces into the city of Kirkuk, the KDP...

Kurdish victory provokes fears of Turkish invasion By Patrick Cockburn in Kirkuk 11 April 2003 Kurdish forces seized Kirkuk, the oil capital of northern Iraq, bringing joyful street celebrations yesterday. Kirkuk is the first northern Iraqi city to fall, but its capture by the Kurds could prompt an invasion by the Turkish army. Turkey rushed military advisers to the city last night to ensure the Kurds pull back and the White House tried to reassure Ankara that American forces would be in firm control. Kurdish leaders claimed that their fighters advanced on the city to stop an orgy of looting...