Michael Ware

Journalist

Apr 2003

TIME: The Turks Enter Iraq

By MICHAEL WARE

Even as the U.S. works to stabilize a postwar Iraq, Turkey is setting out to create a footprint of its own in the Kurdish areas of the country. In the days after U.S. forces captured Saddam's powerbase in Tikrit, a dozen Turkish Special Forces troops were dispatched south from Turkey. Their target: the northern oil city of Kirkuk, now controlled by the U.S. 173rd Airborne Division's 3rd Brigade. Using the pretext of accompanying humanitarian aid the elite soldiers passed through the northern city of Arbil on Tuesday. They wore civilian clothes, their vehicles lagging behind a legitimate aid convoy. They'd hoped to pass unnoticed. But at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Kirkuk they ran into trouble. "We were waiting for them," says a U.S. paratroop officer.

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TIME: A Family's Last Stand for Saddam

By MICHAEL WARE / KIRKUK

Knowing that U.S.-led Kurdish soldiers had entered Kirkuk, Abdul Karim Hamdaniy and his son Ahmed donned plain khaki military uniforms, strapped on ammunition-filled webbing and, with Kalashnikov rifles in hand, headed out of their homes.

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NPR: Northern Iraq

NPR's Juan Williams speaks with Time Magazine's Michael Ware, who is traveling between the northern Iraqi cities of Kirkuk and Tikrit. He says elements of Saddam Hussein's military forces are fleeing west to Syria.

NPR: 4:03 and NPR: 4:05