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Region in north Iraq split on tribal, ethnic, political, religious lines

Sunday, March 09, 2003

By Borzou Daragahi, Special to the Post-Gazette

SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq -- Maybe the five bearded men shot first. Maybe they had driven past the checkpoint so often they no longer bothered to stop, just rolling through as they did driving back north every Tuesday from the weekly meeting of their political party.

	The widows of Kurdish fighters in traditional black clothes pass a Patriotic Union of Kurdistan fighter in the town of Chamchamal west of Sulaymania, Kurdistan, northern Iraq. (Kamran Jebreili, AP photo)

But this past week in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq was different.

Local security forces were on the lookout for carloads of Islamic militants from the group Ansar al-Islam, who had been allegedly scouting sites frequented by Americans. The exact sequence of events remains unclear. But by 3 p.m., Tuesday, the five men lay dead, their bodies riddled with bullets, the windows of their white Toyota Land Cruiser shattered, pools of blood on the pavement.

They were the wrong Islamists. These men belonged to the Islamic Group, an organization with friendly ties to the Kurdish authorities. Officials apologized for the incident, expressing regret for the loss of life and announcing an investigation.

"If there are people who have overreacted and did not adhere to the rules of engagement, there will be repercussions for those involved," said Barham Salih, prime minister of the eastern half of the Kurdish autonomous area.

The violent, mistaken deaths of these five men illustrate the tricky ground-level political minefield the United States will encounter if it occupies Iraq or uses the Kurdish region as a staging point for a northern front against Saddam Hussein's Baghdad regime.

Since its establishment after the 1991 Gulf War, the northern Kurdish-run section of Iraq has become a relatively prosperous enclave where people enjoy many of the civil liberties denied those living in other Middle East countries. But that freedom has also produced an often-confusing mix of political parties, armed militias and ethnic-based groups.

A jumble of secret alliances and lingering animosities underlies the apparent political calm of Northern Iraq. Pro-Kurdish Turkoman groups vie for legitimacy against anti-Kurdish Turkoman with strong ties to the government in Ankara. An Assyrian party claims to represent northern Iraq's Christians, but is distrusted by the mostly Chaldean Christian community. Pro-U.S. Islamic groups are distinguished from vehemently anti-Western ones only by a letter in their acronyms. Many of the groups are armed.

"There are many groups with their own militias," Salih said. "We can't deny anyone the right to organize their militia."

The apparent peace established in 1998 between the broad-based Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party is belied by simmering blood feuds and dangerous machinations. It was the Patriotic Union, for example, that invited the predecessors of Ansar al Islam to hole up in the mountains near the Iranian border after the Democratic Party kicked them out.

"Unfortunately, the brothers from the other side thought that if a group is opposed to the Kurdistan Democratic Party they must be very important, and helped them out," said Nechirwan Barzani, prime minister of the Democratic Party-controlled section of the autonomous zone.

Ansar has terrorized the area. Late last month, a suicide bomber killed himself and three others at a checkpoint on the road to Halabja, near Ansar's stronghold in the mountain village of Biyare. In early February, Ansar militants posing as defectors lured a prominent Patriotic Union leader to his death. In December, Ansar killed scores of Patriotic Union soldiers during an early morning raid on a military outpost. In April 2002, Islamic militants attempted to assassinate Salih, killing members of his entourage.

Almost all of the incidents have left innocent bystanders, including children, dead or wounded. Patriotic Union officials have been itching for revenge.

In Tuesday's killings, officials of the Patriotic Union apparently mistook the Islamic Group's Toyota Land Cruiser for one of three cars that had been spotted spying on airstrips and homes of government officials said to be frequented by the small number of U.S. clandestine operatives working here.

Spent casings littered the ground near the checkpoint as Patriotic Union officials dragged bloody corpses into pickup trucks. Counter-terrorism officers, led by Bafel Talabani, son of Patriotic Union leader Jalal Talabani, came quickly to the scene and claimed they had scored a victory against Ansar.

A few hours later, government officials retracted the Ansar story and conceded the possibility of a mistake.

Tuesday evening at the Jihad Mosque, Islamic Group members wept as the bodies of the five men wrapped in blankets were brought inside. One was Abdulla Qasri, a prominent politician in the organization. A single halogen light bulb hung from the ceiling as a man sobbed loudly.

The Patriotic Union, the mourners complained, didn't even hand over the bodies themselves, instead giving them to the Kurdistan Socialist Democratic Party, another armed militia with an ambivalent relationship to the government.

Members of the Islamic Group called for justice. "If they follow procedures in their investigation, the Patriotic Union has nothing to worry about," said Haji Dilshad Garmiyani, head of the Islamic Group's armed wing. "If they don't, we reserve our right to retaliate."

A 1993 killing of four Islamists at a checkpoint by the Patriotic Union sparked three years of fighting that left more than 600 dead, officials of the Islamic Group said. "This should be cooled down," said Nasih Mullah Salih, a member of the Islamic Group's leadership. "This is the kind of incident that leads to wars."