TIME: More Killings in
Kurdistan
Wednesday, March 05, 2003
By MICHAEL WARE / HALABJA
The Kurdish region in northern Iraq, a pivotal
staging point for any U.S. invasion, is an unsettling
place at the best of times. Five bodies left sprawled
on the road by a checkpoint on March 4 has made it
even more so. Among the dead was Abullah Qasre, a
leading figure in a local militant Islamic group
known as Komal, one of the plethora of sectarian
factions that riddle Kurdish politics. Komal,
however, has come to be particularly important in
recent months in light of the bloody war raging
between ruling parties of Iraqi Kurdistan and
Islamist groups linked with al-Qaeda, such as Ansar
al-Islam. The local government had entered into a
covert dialogue with Komal, hoping to draw it out of
the Islamist nexus. The bloody checkpoint scene,
captured by a Time photographer who arrived during
the gun battle, has now thrown that dialogue into
disarray. Komal supporters immediately blamed local
government forces for the ambush.
On muddy battlefields near the town of Halabja on the
Iran-Iraq border, the Kurdish militants of Komal
guard the northern flank of the war's principal
aggressors, Ansar al Islam. Western and local
intelligence services have suggested variously that
Ansar is backed by al-Qaeda, Tehran and Baghdad.
Whatever the identity of its sponsors, Ansar has
proved to be a major headache for the local
authorities โ the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which
runs the eastern section of the Kurdish region
protected by the Anglo-American "no-fly" zone. For
the past year, Ansar fighters have periodically
attacked and overrun PUK positions, slaughtering
everyone they find and videotaping the carnage for
distribution as propaganda โ the tapes have depicted
prisoners being decapitated or burned alive.
On February 26, Ansar sent a suicide bomber behind
PUK lines, killing two soldiers and a taxi driver
outside of Halabja. The PUK's dialogue with Komal was
designed to isolate and weaken Ansar from a potential
ally.
For some time PUK intelligence and government figures
have been in communication with Komal's leadership.
The day before the suicide bombing, Ansar's pirate
radio station, transmitting only a few miles beyond
the snowy mountains that host their bunkers, aired a
vehement denunciation of the Kurdish group's contact
with the government. On the PUK's frontline, troops
gathered around radios and listened to the diatribe
accusing Komal of being infidels. The soldiers
dismissed it as a ploy โ a few hours later Ansar
vehicles and gunmen had moved into Komal's area of
control to improve their position for the nightly
attack.
The PUK's director general for security, a man who
goes by the name of Dr. Khasraw, hints there may have
been more substance to the split between the Islamic
groups. Indeed he readily makes concessions for the
local militants, suggesting somewhat sympathetically
that Komal's logistic support for Ansar's attempted
assassination on the Kurdish prime minister earlier
this year may have been given without the
leadership's knowledge. "They cannot account for
individuals," he says. He confirmed government
discussions had been underway with Komal, but did not
give details.
American advisers have recently been seen visiting
PUK command posts on the Ansar frontline. Speculation
abounds that U.S. bombers will soften the terrorists'
bunkers in the lead-up to a Kurdish assault. Anything
Komal could have offered in whittling away Ansar's
support would have been helpful to the cause. That is
now lost, with mourner's at Qasre's funeral charging
the PUK with his assassination, rejecting claims that
government soldiers had overreacted in nervous
anticipation of another suicide bomber. That suggests
they've been pushed back into the arms of Ansar, who
may be the biggest beneficiaries of the latest
shootout.