Kurds deserting to avoid peace mission in Baghdad

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq — As the Iraqi government attempts to secure a capital city ravaged by conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslim Arabs, its decision to bring a third party into the mix may cause more problems than peace.

Kurdish soldiers from northern Iraq, who are mostly Sunnis but not Arabs, are deserting the army to avoid the civil war in Baghdad, a conflict they consider someone else's problem.

The Iraqi army brigades being sent to the capital are filled with former members of a Kurdish militia, the peshmerga, and most of the soldiers remain loyal to the militia.

Much as Shiite militias have infiltrated the Iraqi security forces across Arab Iraq, the peshmerga fill the ranks of the Iraqi army in the Kurdish region in the north, poised to secure a semi-independent Kurdistan and seize oil-rich Kirkuk and parts of Mosul if Iraq falls apart. One thing they didn't bank on, they said, was being sent into the "fire" of Baghdad.

"The soldiers don't know the Arabic language, the Arab tradition, and they don't have any experience fighting terror," said Anwar Dolani, a former peshmerga commander who leads the brigade that's being transferred to Baghdad from the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah.

Dolani refused to say how many soldiers have left the army.

"I can't deny that a number of soldiers have deserted the army, and it might increase due to the ferocious military operations in Baghdad," he said.

Iraq developments

Al-Sadr aide's arrest: U.S.-backed Iraqi special forces on Friday detained a senior aide to radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a key backer of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The U.S. didn't name the detainee, accused of involvement with kidnapping, torture and murder, but al-Sadr officials said it was Abdul Hadi al-Darraji. The military said al-Darraji was affiliated with a death-squad commander named Abu Dura, who has reportedly split with al-Sadr and is running a renegade militia cell.

Gates' trip: U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates met in Basra, Iraq, with Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top U.S. commander in Iraq, who predicted the 21,500 troops President Bush is sending to Baghdad should gradually improve security in the war zone during the next three months and could start returning home by late summer.

Iranian issues: Iraqi President Jalal Talabani told an Arab newspaper Iranians were ready to meet with the U.S. for talks about security issues. The U.S., which accuses Iran of helping Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias in Iraq and of trying to build a nuclear-weapons program, recently has built up naval forces in the Persian Gulf and detained five Iranians. Iran, meanwhile, has stepped up military operations along its border in response to what Iranians arriving in Iraq said was an intensification of over-flights by U.S. warplanes.

Seattle Times news services

In interviews soldiers in Sulaimaniyah expressed loyalty to their Kurdish brethren, not to Iraq. Many said they'd already deserted, and those who are going to Baghdad said they'd flee if the situation there became too difficult.

"I joined the army to be a soldier in my homeland, among my people. Not to fight for others who I have nothing to do with," said Ameen Kareem, 38, who took a week's leave with other soldiers from his brigade in Irbil and never returned. "I used to fight in the mountains and valleys, not in the streets."

Kareem said he knew that deserting was risky, but he said he'd rather be behind bars in Kurdistan than a "soldier in Baghdad's fire." Without the language and with his Kurdish features, he was sure he would stand out, he said. He's a Kurd, he said, and he has no reason to become a target in an Arab war.

Now he drives a taxi in Sulaimaniyah, eking out a living and praying that he doesn't get caught.

Other soldiers in Sulaimaniyah also said they didn't want to be involved in someone else's war.

Farman Mohammed, 42, celebrated the Muslim Eid holiday with his family last month and didn't go back when he heard that he might be deployed to Baghdad. Afraid for his life, he found a new job and settled in with his family.

"The fanatic Sunnis in Baghdad kill the Shiites, and vice versa. Both of them are outraged against the Kurds. They will not hesitate to kill us and accuse us of being collaborators with the occupiers," he said. "How can we face them alone?"

An army brigade from Sulaimaniyah began arriving at the Muthana Airport in Baghdad earlier this week, and a brigade from Irbil, another Kurdish city, is expected in February, Ghaidan said.

The 1,200 Kurdish soldiers in each of the two brigades from the Kurdish north will be dwarfed by 2,700 soldiers in each brigade that are being brought to Baghdad from the Shiite south.