February 26, 2003	Wednesday	Zul Hijjah 24, 1423

ARBIL: The US plans to station at least 40,000 troops in the Kurdish self-rule area of northern Iraq, but their mission will be to secure the region and provide logistical support for a US-led offensive on the key cities of Mosul and Kirkuk, rather than to use the area as a launching pad for an assault on Baghdad, a senior Kurdish official told the Guardian.

During a campaign to remove President Saddam Hussein, the official said, US troops would be ferried across the border from Turkey and deployed at bases stretching from Dohuk in the west near the Turkish and Syrian borders to Mount Harir in central Iraqi Kurdistan and to the Derbendikan lake in the southeast, not far from the frontier with Iran.

Other American infantry would move swiftly through the western edge of the Kurdish-controlled area from the border with Turkey to capture Mosul and Kirkuk, just outside the Kurdish zone, from where they would be able to thrust southwards to Tikrit, President Saddam’s home town.

“They will establish a northern bridgehead to protect their supply lines to government controlled territory, but also to help defend our area from invasion from the Iraqi army,” the official said. “Kurdistan will not see much fighting, but it will be a strategically vital area to support the allied battle against (government) strongholds in Tikrit and Baghdad.”

US troops would also seek to secure Iraq’s northern border crossing with Syria to prevent the regime’s scientists and officials from fleeing.

The official said there were already up to 1,000 US troops in Iraqi Kurdistan, which has been free of Baghdad’s control since 1991, in addition to intelligence teams. Military vehicles and communications equipment have been flown in, but as yet no heavy weaponry. “That is only a matter of time,” said the official. He predicted that the weapons would include Patriot and Stinger missiles, but they would be for “defensive purposes only and be operated by US troops”.

Wary of provoking President Saddam, Kurdish leaders publicly insist they have not been made privy to US war plans. But the last two weeks have seen a flurry of consultations with American officials.

US forces would work closely with the 70,000 or so lightly armed peshmerga fighters loyal to the two groups controlling the self-rule area, Massoud Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic party (KDP) and Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

A commander with the PUK’s forces said that although the peshmerga would be kept out of any frontline fighting, they could assist US troops with their knowledge of the mountains and valleys of Kurdistan. Should the Iraqi frontline quickly collapse, the self-rule area could become a base for special forces raids into central Iraq, aimed at the Iraqi army’s command and control structure. Crack squads of peshmerga have reportedly undergone training by the US and British in the arts of sabotage and diversionary manoeuvres.

The peshmerga fighters may also be called on to handle prisoners of war, or large numbers of defectors from the Iraqi army, said the Kurdish commander. His men were already in contact with senior Iraqi officers who say they are ready to bring their troops over once a US attack starts. He believes even President Saddam’s republican guard will quickly surrender. “If the US is serious about removing the regime, it will be a short surgical attack. And we can prepare the way.”

Kurdish military leaders appear happy to accommodate the US, but hint they would like to play a more active role once the fighting starts.

“We’ll turn the whole of Kurdistan into an airstrip if they want us to,” the commander said, “though our allies should know we are serious about being their partners in whatever happens.”

A few red lines have already been drawn, however. For fear of upsetting its regional ally Turkey, the US is eager to keep the Kurdish peshmerga under the direct control of a US-allied northern command. Turkey fears that any advance by Iraqi Kurds will provoke its own Kurdish population to rise up. It also fears Kurdish control of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, just outside the self-rule area.

But Kurds remain unhappy with a plan drawn up in Ankara which envisages Turkish troops deploying along a nearly 320 km long, 32-40km deep “buffer zone” on the Iraqi side of the border-from the Kurdish town of Zakho eastwards.

The deal, which US officials insist is not finalized, is part of a quid pro quo with Ankara for allowing US troops to use Turkish bases.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.