No subject

the city, U.S. troops listen to residents looking for work or complaining
of losing their homes to Kurds.

One man standing near the fence voices his concern at seeing members of a
new political group pass by brandishing guns.

"Many new parties have sprung up from nowhere and I fear this will lead to
violence," said Khaled, a former builder, who declined to give his family
name.

"I think the Iraqi people are not ready to switch to democracy," he added,
as a U.S. military helicopter took off nearby.

"I am so worried about the future because of these groups. Apart from them,
there is no trouble between Kurds and Arabs," he says, before smartening
his brown suit and offering the U.S. forces his services as a translator.

Kurdish and U.S. officials want to set up a commission in northern Iraq to
resolve disputes between Arabs and Kurds displaced from their homes under
Saddam. Many Kurds demand the right to return to the homes from which they
were expelled.

Standing beside the U.S. guards, Arif already works as an interpreter,
translating complaints for the soldiers.
"Some people protest that they have been forced out of their homes by Kurds
north of Mosul and want help to return there. Some have been attacked and
lost their property," he said.

On the bank of the Tigris river in eastern Mosul, where most of the city's
Kurdish minority lives, a representative of the Kurdistan Democratic Party
(KDP) said a meeting between Arab tribal leaders and KDP leader Massoud
Barzani this week had made a start to resolving some differences.

"Both sides agreed to support each other. We are brothers, Arabs and Kurds,
the Iraqi people," said the KDP's Shawkat Bamarni, sitting in his office
below a picture of Barzani.

INCREASED SECURITY, COOPERATION

While some Iraqis handed petitions to U.S. soldiers at the airport, another
crowd gathered in central Mosul, to meet U.S. military officials keeping
control over the city.

"We are seeing good cooperation. We are doing joint patrols and we have a
dialogue with a committee of civil leaders," Major General David Petraeus,
commander of the 101st Airborne Division, told Reuters as he was escorted
through the crowd.

"The security situation is improving... There are obviously competing
interests and that is democracy. We came here to help people enjoy the
freedom of democracy," he said, before shaking hands with residents and
posing for photographs with them.

The U.S. forces in the city have been following a gentle approach to the
rival factions in the city, trying to win local support and restore
civilian services before disarming the groups.

But Air Force General Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S military Joint
Chiefs of Staff, said on Friday U.S. forces had gone into action against
paramilitaries northwest of the city.

"This morning a 20- to 30-man Iraqi paramilitary force attacked a coalition
patrol northwest of Mosul," he told a news conference in Washington.
"Coalition forces killed several of the attackers and destroyed two of
their so-called 'technical' vehicles, the trucks with machine guns on them."

Although dialogue has been established with local groups, U.S. officials
said no single clear leader had yet emerged.

One controversial candidate, self-proclaimed Mosul governor Mashaan
al-Juburi, fell into disfavour last week after a meeting at which he spoke
organised turned violent. Marines shot dead at least seven people at the
protest.

"Juburi has been a source of a lot of trouble for us. The locals are not
that enamoured of him and we are trying to distance ourselves from him,"
said Major Steve Katz, a company commander for civil affairs, at his office
in the airport.

Iraqis outside also expressed their distaste for Juburi, who like many
other rival leaders is a recently returned exile.

"It is the people in Iraq who have suffered for more than 20 years with the
Iran war, the Gulf wars and the sanctions. We think we have the right to
lead ourselves, rather than those who have been living in comfort in Paris
or London," said Khaled.

-----


12) University President asks Peshmergas to Protect Shattered Mosul University
Reuters
April 24, 2003
By Daren Butler

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Dr Khalil al-Saif holds back tears as he shows
gutted classrooms and ruined equipment at Mosul University -- shattered by
war without a bomb coming near.

Armed men stole or destroyed all they could at the campus two weeks ago,
taking advantage of a power vacuum to mount a looting spree that has left
Saif and other university officials struggling to prepare for the return of
students as life regains a semblance of normality elsewhere in Iraq's third
largest city.

To make matters worse, the issue of university security is becoming a
source of friction between the U.S. military and officials who want to keep
soldiers away from the campus.

It is a problem which illustrates the sort of challenge faced by the U.S.
army as it seeks to impose authority without upsetting locals in a city of
more than one million people.

"The students will not tolerate direct contact with the occupying forces,"
University President Zuhair al-Sharook told Reuters in his office
overlooking the campus entrance, guarded by Kurdish "peshmerga" fighters
with Kalashnikov rifles.

He was speaking after a recent visit from officials of the U.S. army, which
poured thousands of troops into the northern city this week in a show of
force aimed at restoring order.

Sharook said he asked the peshmerga to protect the sprawling university,
which has 18,000 students, until civilian guards could be arranged. A U.S.
army officer said the university administrator had wanted nothing to do
with the American forces.

FACTIONAL FIGHTING

Well-armed Arab and Kurdish factions have been competing for power in Mosul
since the collapse of Saddam Hussein's rule and U.S. forces fear the city
could be beset by factional fighting along ethnic and religious lines.

There has also been opposition to the U.S. invasion, especially since
Marines shot dead at least seven people at a protest in the city center
last week.

Angered at the destruction in the university and beyond, Sharook said armed
U.S. soldiers were not welcome on the campus.

"The Mongol emperor Hulago came to destroy Baghdad in 1280 and burned all
the schools. Now history is repeating itself with the Hulago of the 21st
century," he said, echoing a comment made by Saddam Hussein before the war.

The scale of the damage done to the university is obvious along the campus
entrance road, which is littered with dozens of ruined computers,
photocopiers, fax machines and pieces of furniture which have been
recovered -- a small fraction of what was stolen on April 10, according to
campus officials.

They said the first looters were dressed in traditional Kurdish costume and
were followed later in the day by armed Arab militia. The frightened staff
could do little to stop them.

"This was not random destruction. It was premeditated and done by trained
people. Somebody must have paid them to do it," Saif said as he clambered
over charred furniture and cables in the gutted computer center.

Saif said a U.S. army officer had visited the site several days ago and
promised to send civilian monitors to see what was needed at the center,
but there was no sign of them yet.

Staff and local people, horrified by the looting, have helped to repair
some of the damage. Saif's students have helped retrieve desks and set them
up in a nearby building.

For Saif, the issue of whether help comes from the United States or
elsewhere is immaterial.

"I feel so bad as I have given 25 years of my life to this place," he sad.
. But now Saddam has run away and I believe we can rebuild," he said. "Iraq
is one of the best countries in the east, believe me."


----

13) Kurds Pushing For Federalism
RFE/RL
By Jean-Christophe Peuch
April 25, 2003

Prague -- Sami Shoresh is a correspondent with RFE/RL's Radio Free Iraq. He
has been traveling in Iraq for more than a month, spending most of that
time in the Kurdish-controlled north of the country.

Question: How do Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and
Mas'ud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) see the place of
Kurdistan in Iraq?

Shoresh: For years the Kurds have [had] the idea of federalism for Iraq.
They [have] insisted on this plan and in 1994 [the Kurdish] parliament
agreed on the plan [for a federal Iraq]. They also tried to [convert] other
factions in the Iraqi opposition [to this idea] of federalism. But, at the
same time, the Kurds insist that federalism cannot exist in Iraq if there
is not a democratic [state]. They know that the main condition [to
implement this] is that democracy exists in the whole of Iraq. Kurdish
political parties, especially the KDP and the PUK, have been very active in
the Iraqi opposition in trying to find a way to establish democracy in Iraq
because they regard democracy as an essential first step toward federalism.

Question: Could the 1970 accord that granted the Kurds limited autonomy
within Iraq possibly serve as a basis for future negotiations?

Shoresh: No, I think the Kurds have no plans to go back to what [was
reached] in 1970 because they think the world, the region, Iraq [in
general] and the Kurdish situation [in particular] have changed over the
past 30 to 35 years. With this new order, they think [they should] push for
federalism within Iraq, not just for the limited autonomy the Iraqi
government offered them in 1970. The Kurds want new negotiations with the
central government and with all Iraqi parties. They want a new basis [to
defend] their rights and [to establish] democracy in Iraq.

Question: Are they considering setting up their own armed forces?

Shoresh: The Kurds have said quite openly that they do not want to see
Iraqi security forces return to Kurdistan. The Kurds have had a long
history [of conflict] with Iraqi security forces and they do not want these
forces to return and control Kurdish cities and areas. But I don't think
they want to have their own [armed] forces. They want a single army in a
united Iraq, but I know that, traditionally, the Kurds have demanded that
army units garrisoned in Kurdistan be made [up] of Kurds. What it means is
that Kurdish citizens would have the right and the duty to serve in the
Iraqi Army but should serve in their native region, not outside Kurdistan.
They also want that Kurdish security forces be created to control their
region. They want their own security forces but at the same time they want
a united army for Iraq with [units] meant for Iraqi Kurdistan made of Kurds.

Question: How do the KDP and the PUK feel about the interim administration
the United States wants to set up to administer Iraq until a new government
is formed?

Shoresh: The Kurds believe U.S. forces [should] not stay in Iraq for a very
long time. But at the same time they believe these forces should stay in
Iraq until the Iraqis will be able to establish their own government and
until stability is restored in the country. Then, they say, the Americans
will be no longer needed. But at the same time they have no problems with
the [future] U.S. administration. [Retired U.S.] General [Jay] Garner has
spent two days [this week] in Irbil and Sulaymaniyah to meet with Kurdish
leaders. As far as I know [both sides] came to a very good and common
understanding of the situation in Iraq and Kurdistan.

Question: Did Garner discuss with Kurdish leaders ways to allow Kurds,
Turkomans, and Assyrians, who had been displaced under Saddam's forced
Arabization policy, return to their lands without confronting Arab settlers?

Shoresh: During his visit to Irbil and Sulaymaniyah, Garner discussed this
issue with Kurdish leaders because this is one of the biggest problems Iraq
[faces] in the near future. A very large number of persons were driven from
their [native] villages, towns or cities in and around Kirkuk, Mosul,
Khanaqin, and in other areas. This issue needs to be settled with the help
of law. New laws should be adopted to solve this problem peacefully. If
this issue is not solved quickly and with the help of law, it will in the
future be a source of many conflicts and problems for Iraq.

----

14) Barzani to Attend Leadership Meeting in Baghdad Wednesday: KDP official
AFP
April 26, 2003

ARBIL, Kurdish chief Massoud Barzani will take part in a meeting of key
figures who opposed Saddam Hussein due to be held in Baghdad Wednesday, but
will send delegates to a US-sponsored gathering two days earlier, an
official of his Kurdistan Democratic Party said.

The official, who asked not to be named, told AFP in KDP-held Arbil
Saturday that Barzani would not personally attend Monday's meeting in the
Iraqi capital, the second in a planned series arranged by the United States
since its forces toppled Saddam April 9.

But Barzani, whose party has shared control of part of northern Iraq with
Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) since 1991, will go to
Baghdad for the Wednesday meeting of a leadership council named during an
opposition meeting at Barzani's headquarters in Salahaddin in February.

The official said that in addition to Barzani and Talabani, participants
would include council members Ahmad Chalabi, head of the US-backed Iraqi
National Congress (INC); Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Assembly of the
Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI), the main Shiite Islamist group that
opposed Saddam, and Iyad Allawi, head of the National Accord Movement.

Former foreign minister Adnan Pachachi, who turned down the offer to join
the leadership body back in February, is not expected to attend, he added.

----

15) Barzani: Kurds are entitled to have an independent state
KurdishMedia
April 27, 2003

London -- The leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party Massoud Barzani said
yesterday that there would be no reason for US forces to remain in Iraq
once a government takes over ahead of general elections.

To a question on the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya news channel about his recent
meeting with Jay Garner, the U.S. administrator for Iraq, Barzani said,
"What we discussed with Garner is that the opposition leadership council
would meet in Baghdad very soon, to be followed by a broader meeting of all
Iraqi parties, forces and figures. But if matters stabilize and the
national authority takes over and fills the security and administrative
vacuum, there will no longer be any justification for the coalition forces
to remain, and their (presence) would then be regarded as an occupation,"
Barzani said.

Barzani also added that Garner had promised the United States would deal
with that government as "the legitimate representative of the Iraqi people."

Agreement that the Iraqis would pick their interim government had been
reached with the Americans before they launched the war, said the KDP leader.

Barzani stated that Kurds were committed to a post-Hussein federal
arrangement agreed with other groups that opposed the regime despite the
fact that they in principle have the right to statehood.

"Like all other nations, the Kurdish nation is fully entitled to
self-determination and the establishment of a Kurdish state," he said.

"But at the moment, we do not have an agenda different to that of the Iraqi
opposition. We are pursuing the agenda hammered out at the London
conference and the Salahaddin conference" in February, he said.

Asked whether the Kurds would eventually demand statehood, Barzani said:
"Life progresses, the world progresses, and the Kurdish people too are
entitled to progress with others."

Referring to Turkey's fears about the possible resurgence of separatist
aspirations among Kurds in Turkey, Barzani said he was speaking strictly
about Iraqi Kurds.

"The Kurdish nation is one ... but fact is that the Kurdish nation is now
scattered and we now bear the responsibility of settling the Kurdish issue
in Iraq," said Barzani, speaking from KDP Salahaddin headquarters in south
Kurdistan.

"Resolving the Kurdish issue in Turkey or Iran or anywhere else is up to
the Kurds there. However, in the long term, and from a strategic
standpoint, the Kurdish nation is entitled to unite and to have an
independent state," he said.

-----

16) PUK's Talebani calls for rebuilding of Iraqi national army
IRNA
April 26, 2003

Sanandaj, Kurdestan prov. -- The Satellite Kurdistan TV Channel said on
Saturday leader of the Patriotic Union of Iraqi Kurdistan (PUK) Jalal
Talebani has called for rebuilding the Iraqi national army.

 The TV Channel said Talebani made the remark in a meeting with the
leaders of the Arab Al-Salehi groups and three top officers of the Iraqi army.

 The meeting between the Iraqi figures took place in presence of the
American General Bruce Moore who supervises affairs in northern Iraq.

 The same sources said Talebani called for formation of a committee to
follow up the issues of the reconstruction of the Iraqi army.

 The PUK once again stressed the need for a strong unity among the Kurds,
Arabs and Turkmen in Iraq to reach the ideals of Iraq.

 He said any action to divide the Iraqi groups would be to the detriment
of the Iraqi nation and would intensify tension in the country.

 Talebani said all Kurdish, Turkmen, Arab and Assyrian communities would
continue to co-exist in their country and they would get united in
reconstruction of their motherland and creation a free Iraq.

 He said political and administrative programs should be developed soon to
run the major urban areas while cited Kirkuk as an exemplary city where all
Iraqi communities from every race co-exist peacefully.

 The policy of regime of Saddam Hussein consisted of sowing discord among
the Iraqi ethnic groups, he said adding that today every Iraqi national is
aware that the country needs unity more than any other thing.

 He said the PUK would do its utmost to contribute to the administration
of justice and fairness in the Iraqi society.

 Talebani said the Kurdish community would respect the attitudes and
beliefs of all Iraqis within a system that replaces the Saddam regime.

 He said the PUK would consider protecting Iraqi territory as one of its
top priorities and called on the Iraqis to help create a prosperous and
free Iraq.

-----

17) Has south Kurdistan become a sanctuary for former Baathists war criminals?
25 April 2003
KurdishMedia.com

While the coalition forces have named only 55 top Iraqi criminals, it does
not mean that other suspected criminals can go free.

After the collapse of the Iraqi regime, a number of high-ranking Kurdish
and Arab members of Saddam's Baath party and high ranking officials in
Saddam's regime have moved to south Kurdistan, controlled by the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).

The PUK and KDP have given sanctuary to a number of these suspected war
criminals.

They include:

- Omed Madhad Mubarak: former Iraqi minister of health and a high-ranking
decision maker of the former Baathist regime. It is believed that he was
aware of most of the Iraqi regimes different programmes.

- Shiekh Jaffar Barzanji: responsible for the arrest and killing of
hundreds of Kurds and is also accused for raping Kurdish women in Sulemani
in the 1980s when he was the governor of the city. Barzanji was a very
close ally of Saddam Hussein and Ali Hassain Al-Majie (Ali Kimyawi).
Berzenji was also the President of the puppet autonomous legislative and
executive committee set up by the Baath regime for Kurdistan. Barzanji
moved from being a member of the Iraqi Communist Party to a member of the
Baath Party in 1970, when he passed on the names of many communists to the
Iraqi regime. Most of them were executed after that. As a reward, Barzanji
became the head of Jash (Iraqi mercenaries) in Kirkuk, later governor of
Sulemani.

- Shiekh Mutasam Barzanji: high ranking Batthist and the brother of Shiekh
Jaffar Barzanji.

- Bahdeen Ahmad: leading figure of the puppet autonomous legislative and
executive committee set up by the Baath regime for Kurdistan.

- Ibrahim Zangana: high ranking Baathist.

- Samali Majeed Bag: high ranking Baathist, former minister of Planning and
the former minister of Agriculture.

- Qasim Agha: member of the puppet Iraqi assembly. He is responsible for
the murder of many Kurds. Qasim also claims that he is from the Ghafuri
tribe residing in Koy-Sanjaq.

- Ahmed Enayat: high ranking Baathist and a member of the puppet Iraqi
assembly.

- Hashim Jabari: head of the Kirkuk TV and Iraq- Kurdish TV, a very
sensitive position in Saddam's propaganda apparatus.

- Bahzad Qadir (known also as Bahzadi Qale Nureri): high ranking Baathist.
He joined Baath party during the 1970s. He was a high-ranking member of
Saddam's
police force.

- KurdishMedia.com has been informed that Izzat Dury, the Iraqi deputy
prime minister, who is also among the 55 Iraqi officials wanted by U.S., is
currently in Arbil, in a house of a Sheikh. However, KurdishMedia.com has
not been able to verify this report.

The Kurdistan Regional Government is fully aware of the whereabouts of
these suspected criminals and so far has offered protection to them. This
is not the first time that the Kurdish political parties offer protection
to war criminals. After the uprising in Kurdistan in 1991, both the PUK and
KDP protected hundreds of criminals such as Tahsin Shaways, who was
responsible for the murder of the legendary peshmarga Mama Risha and Shahid
Aram, the founder and the leader of the Komallay Ranjdarani Kurdistan, the
organization that started the Kurdish armed struggle in the mid-1970s and
was later absorbed by Jalal Talabani's PUK.

"International law is very clear on this issue. It is an obligation for all
the coalition forces to prosecute crimes under international law," Dr Kamal
Berzenji, the international legal expert stated. The PUK and KDP must be
aware that under local and international law those who hide criminals are
committing crimes themselves.

-----

18) Report: Kurds find mass graves
UPI
April 27, 2003

ERBIL, Iraq -- Kurdish and human rights groups in northern Iraq have
discovered a mass grave containing 200 Kurds killed by Iraqi forces in
March 1991,a Kurdish newspaper reported.

The Brayti newspaper, run by the Kurdistan Democratic Party, said the grave
was near Kanhash in the Kowair province, 24 miles south of Erbil. Kurdish
forces captured the town for a few weeks during the 1991 uprising and again
after the collapse of the Iraqi regime this month.

The paper quoted KDP official Ismail Mohammad as saying, "We received
reports of a mass grave in the village and we found the corpses belonged to
civilian Kurdish victims who were captured by the Iraqi forces.

They killed civilians as they were advancing into the northern provinces to
crush the Kurdish uprising."

It added that a schoolteacher in Kanhash was interrogated and detained by
the Iraqi security forces for more than two weeks in the mid-1990s "merely
because he spoke about these graves in a mosque."

The Center for al-Anfal Victims, a Kurdish group, and human rights groups
in northern Iraq announced two days ago the discovery of the first mass
grave containing 3,000 bodies of women, children and elderly of the
al-Anfal operations, in which more than 182,000 Kurds were killed in 1988.

The paper called on Kurdish officials to refrain from digging up the graves
without the presence of international human rights and media
representatives "so as to witness the brutal policy against the Kurdish
people by the former Iraqi regime."

-----

19) Many Iraq Arabs Unaware of '88 Gas Attack
By SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI
Associated Press
April 27, 2003

MANQOUBEH, Iraq (AP)--While the horrific images of streets strewn with
bodies shook the world, many Iraqi Arabs remain unaware of Saddam Hussein's
gas attack that killed thousands of Iraqi Kurds 15 years ago.

And those Arabs who heard rumors of the slaughter in the northern city of
Halabja say they did not believe them at the time. Some remain unconvinced
today.

The chemical attack on the Kurds stands as one of the most egregious
examples of Saddam's brutality against his own people. It was cited by
President Bush as proof that Saddam had the willingness and ability to use
weapons of mass destruction--a key justification for the war that toppled
Saddam.

The attack and its memory also underscore the different experiences of the
Arabs and Kurds who live uneasily as neighbors in northern Iraq. The
success of any post-Saddam government could falter if relations between the
two ethnic groups deteriorate.

Halabja lies on the southern fringe of Iraqi Kurdistan, near the Iranian
border. Some 5,000 Kurds died there when they were attacked with bombs
carrying mustard gas and other poisonous gases on March 16, 1988, part of a
scorched-earth campaign to wipe out a Kurdish rebellion in northern Iraq.

It was easy for Saddam's repressive regime, which enforced strict
censorship, to keep news of the slaughter from spreading. As a result, very
few people in the village of Manqouba, 155 miles west of Halabja, had heard
of the chemical massacre there. And even fewer believed it.

Iraqi Arabs in other towns in northern Iraq's oil-producing province of
Kirkuk showed similar disbelief, even though Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen live
side by side in the region. In fact, until Iraqi security documents were
seized during the Kurdish uprising of 1991, even many Kurds of northern
Iraq had not heard of the Halabja attack or didn't know details of it.

Nafeh Mohammed Saleh, 42, and his brother Adel, 40, were soldiers in the
Iraqi army during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. Adel was serving in
Panjwain, in northern Iraq, close to Halabja.

``We heard there had been a chemical attack but we didn't know where--in
the north or the south or the central sector,'' Adel said.

Nafeh said he had seen a video of the dead that his Kurdish friends had
shown him, with children and women lying dead in the streets.

``But I don't know if it was a genuine film,'' Nafeh said, fingering his
worry beads. ``People talked, but we didn't hear it from anyone who had
seen it himself. We still have our doubts.''

He added: ``I heard they bombed Halabja because they wanted to get the
Iranians out. I heard they had bombed them with crushed stones--not
chemicals.''

On March 15, 1988, Halabja fell to the Kurdish peshmerga fighters of Jalal
Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which was supported by Iranian
revolutionary guards. The next morning, Iraqi MiG and Mirage jets dropped
bombs that engulfed the town in a sickly stench. In the space of a few
hours, 5,000 people had died.

The attack was ordered by Gen. Ali Hassan al-Majid, a cousin of Saddam who
was later dubbed ``Chemical Ali'' by opponents. He was believed killed in
coalition bombing this month in Basra.

The United Nations and human rights groups have assembled a mass of
evidence of the Iraqi chemical attack on Halabja, including witness
accounts and internal Iraqi military documents. However, Saddam's regime
always denied any role, saying Iran gassed the city.

Wassim Mohammed al-Hamdani, 33, said he only heard of the Halabja gassing a
couple of months ago.
``Kurds told us that they were bombed by chemical weapons,'' he said.

He said he believed the attack had occurred because the man who told him
was a Muslim and true Muslims do not lie.

But Salem Mohammed al-Hamdani, 45, insisted that the attack could not have
occurred. He said he was in Halabja recently.

``Impossible, impossible,'' he said, using his index finger to stress his
point.

----

20) Iraqi Turkmen Party See No Trouble With Kurds
Tehran Times
April 26, 2003

ARBIL, Iraq -- The leader of an ethnic Turkmen Iraqi movement allied with
Ankara pledged Saturday not to stir up trouble with the Kurdish minority
and said he did not know of any Turkish incursions into the country.

"We don't want to stir up trouble. We only want freedom and for the rights
of Iraqi Turkmens to be respected as part of a democratic Iraq," Sanhan
Ahmed al-Qassab, head of the Iraqi Turkmen Front, told AFP in the Kurdish
self-rule stronghold of Arbil.

He said he did not "know anything" about the reported infiltration of
Turkish special forces into northern Iraq.
"Turkey is a close ally of the United States and it's hard to think that
its army would send troops into Iraq without informing the Americans about
it," Qassab said.

Time magazine reported that U.S. paratroopers had Tuesday intercepted one
unit of Turkish commandos which had attached itself to a humanitarian aid
convoy.

Colonel Bill Mayville told the magazine that the Turkish forces' objective
"is to create an environment that can be used by Turkey to send a large
peacekeeping force into Kirkuk," the oil-rich northern Iraqi city.

Turkey, which for years has put down Kurdish separatists on its own soil,
is concerned Kurds will be emboldened if they secure autonomy in Iraq
following the fall of Saddam Hussein. Kurds have exercised de facto control
in the north since 1991.

After Turkish threats to intervene, Iraqi Kurdish forces withdrew April 11
from Kirkuk and Mosul, which are now controlled only by U.S. troops.

Experts believe there are between 300,000 and 500,000 Turkmens in Iraq, a
country of 25 million. Qassab put the Turkmen population at three million,
which would make the minority as large as the Kurds. "We are Iraqis, our
country is Iraq, our flag is the Iraqi flag, our borders are those of
Iraq," Qassab said, stressing that his group received "more support from
Turkish humanitarian and cultural organizations than from the government in
Ankara."

He said Turkmens were "at peace" with Iraq's Kurds and majority Arabs.

"We respect the Kurdish movements as they were also victims of Saddam
Hussein's regime," he said.

-----

21) Terrorist manual may link Iraqi group to al Qaeda
Information found at Ansar al-Islam training center in Kurdish enclave
New York Times
C.J. Chivers
April 27, 2003

Darga Sharkhan, Iraq -- The 2-inch-thick manual on killing, discovered in
an abandoned bomb laboratory here early this month, offers instruction in
al Qaeda's array of lethal demolition skills.

With a text in Arabic complemented by diagrams taken from U.S. military
manuals, the document offers lessons for rigging explosives, setting and
concealing booby traps, and wiring an alarm clock to detonate a bomb.

The book is a photocopy of one volume of the Jihad Encyclopedia, the
technical manual that U.S. officials have said is used by al Qaeda in its
war against the West. Other copies were found in terrorist training camps
and guest houses in Afghanistan after the defeat of the Taliban in 2001.

This copy, though, was found in the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq. It
was recovered by Kurdish security officials in a training center operated
by Ansar al-Islam, a local armed party.

Weeks after Ansar was forced from its territory by U.S. special forces
soldiers and Kurdish fighters at the end of March, evidence gathered from
its bases provides a detailed look at the operations of that band of
Islamic guerrillas.

U.S. military officials say the new materials show that a methodical
collaboration has gone far beyond helping Ansar get its start and
demonstrate that al Qaeda has the ability to export its training lessons
from place to place.

Interviews with prisoners and translations of internal documents and
computer disks show that Ansar possessed manuals from al Qaeda in printed
and digital form, ran two training bases with curriculums strikingly
similar to those taught in Afghan camps, and managed its affairs much as al
Qaeda did.

The group also had poison recipes much like those found in al Qaeda
buildings in Afghanistan after the Taliban fell.

Moreover, al Qaeda seeded Ansar with experienced fighters who helped
organize the group's training, administration and ambitions, U.S. and
Kurdish officials say.

A special forces officer described the books, posters and lesson plans
recovered by Kurds and U.S. intelligence teams as "Qaeda mobile
curriculum." Identification cards showed that some of the fighters came
from other countries, and U.S. officials expressed concern that they formed
part of a core group of militants who could turn up elsewhere in years to
come.

Ansar's bases operated like a small al Qaeda campus moved to another
restless corner of the Earth, the documents and interviews indicate.

"They had al Qaeda instructors with them, they had an al Qaeda cadre," said
a special forces officer who helped coordinate the battle against Ansar and
who has reviewed the intelligence collected about the group.

"One of the problems with al Qaeda is that it is not a clearly identifiable
organization. They don't wear an al Qaeda uniform or carry an al Qaeda
passport, but they launch out these professionals who train and start groups."

Ansar established itself late in 2001, as the war in Afghanistan was
winding down, by uniting previously splintered Islamic parties. It occupied
a border region in northeastern Iraq that has been out of Saddam Hussein's
control since 1991.

The group waged war against the northern zone's Kurdish government,
destabilizing the region with assassination attempts, guerrilla attacks and
suicide bombings. The United States has pointed to its activities as one
justification for the war in Iraq.

Evidence collected from the region is still being analyzed, and some U.S.
allegations remain publicly unsubstantiated. No clear evidence has emerged
of operational links between Ansar and Hussein's government.

U.S. and Kurdish officials say the group received support from al Qaeda and
coordinated activities through Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian identified
by the United States as a lieutenant of Osama bin Laden.
They also said the group ran a factory that made the poison ricin and a
topical cyanide poison and maintained ties with Hussein.

U.S. officials say an intelligence team has collected cyanide-based
compounds from a former Ansar base and is awaiting test results to see if
the group managed to concoct a larger selection of poisons.

The evidence collected at Ansar's bases also suggests collaboration with al
Qaeda. Some of the papers were gathered by journalists, and others were
provided by Kurdish intelligence officials before being translated by a
private language institute in northern Iraq.

Textbooks and bomb or poison recipes in Ansar custody were identical to
those contained in al Qaeda's records from Afghanistan, including the bomb
manual for the Jihad Encyclopedia and computer files on Western
intelligence collection and ways to evade it. Other documents were
strikingly similar in tone or content to al Qaeda papers found in
Afghanistan, like military training materials.

The curriculum is the product of a detailed collection and translation
effort. A special forces officer flipped through the Ansar explosives
manual found here, noting, as other U.S. officers have, that it included
page after page of instructional diagrams from U.S. Army publications.

He recognized almost every one. "This one is from our improvised munitions
manual," he said. "That's from the booby trap manual. This is almost
photocopied from our books."

A few documents also promoted social practices reminiscent of those imposed
by the Taliban, including a memo forbidding the passage of vehicles
carrying television sets because they might import immorality to the Ansar
villages.

Like al Qaeda and the Taliban, Ansar ran Web sites. They mixed religious
invocation and martial gloating, sometimes posting video of the mutilated
bodies of Kurds.

The day after Ansar was chased from its strongholds, it posted an
announcement from its leadership council declaring that the U.S. assault
had failed.

"Thanks to God, all of these billions of dollars were not able to do the
smallest harm to our mujahedeen," the declaration said.