Kurds determined to keep grip on tense city in northern Iraq

KIRKUK, Iraq — The phone rang, and it was answered by a Kurdish security commander, Hallo Najat, sitting in his office in this deeply divided city.

On the line, he said, was a U.N. official wanting to know if the Kurdish militia, the pesh merga, had left its bases in northern Iraq and was occupying Kirkuk.

No, Najat told the caller. But after hanging up, he wryly revealed the deeper truth about Kirkuk, combustible for its mix of ethnicities floating together on a sea of oil: The Kurds already control it.

"It's true," Najat said. "What is the need for the troops?"

Of all the political problems facing Iraq today, perhaps none is so intractable as the fate of Kirkuk, a city of 900,000 that Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens all claim as their own. The explosive quarrel over the city is one major barrier to creating stable political structures in the rest of Iraq.

Kurdish authority is visible everywhere in the city. In addition to the provincial government and command of the police, the Kurds control the Asaish, the feared undercover security service that works with the U.S. military and, according to Asaish commanders, U.S. intelligence agencies.

Asaish officers are often the first to the scene of an attack and, other Kurdish officials concede, seem always to have the best intelligence.

The Kurds' control over the security forces — and their ability to use it for political purposes — was evident three weeks ago, rival groups say, after a suicide bomber attacked Kurdish demonstrators, igniting a riot that left dozens dead and hundreds wounded.

After the attack, a mob of Kurds set upon a Turkmen political headquarters, eventually firebombing the building. At some point, the Turkmen guards inside fired at the crowd. All in all, U.S. officials say they believe, far more people were killed and wounded in the riot than in the bombing that touched it off.

Yet, while the police quickly arrested 13 Turkmens at the headquarters, charging them with firing on the crowd, they did not apprehend any of the Kurds who burned the building.

The Kurds' accumulation of power has stoked tensions with Arabs and Turkmens. "There is much fear," said Mohammed Khalil, the leader of the Arab bloc on the provincial council. "The Asaish are saying they will annex Kirkuk by force, and that is terrifying people." Arabs also say the Asaish carry out kidnappings, a charge Asaish officers deny.

Under Saddam Hussein, tens of thousands of Kurdish families were driven out of Kirkuk, replaced by Arabs as part of his drive to obtain a firmer political grip on the enormous oil reserves here. But after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, Kurdish militiamen reversed the process, driving out Arabs and bringing in Kurds. Arabs and Turkmens now make up 40 percent of Kirkuk's population, according to U.S. military estimates.

The Kurds want to fold Kirkuk into the neighboring Kurdistan region. They also warn any plan involuntarily stripping them of power will be harshly contested.

In sweeps conducted with the Americans, the Iraqi army has helped establish stability this year in other volatile parts of Iraq. But Iraqi troops have largely stayed out of Kirkuk.

After the July 28 attacks, however, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered in a battalion from a nearby base. The troops took up positions in the city.

Aware that part of the proposal being debated in Baghdad was to send in a far larger force to administer security — which would mean a mostly Arab force — the Kurds objected strenuously.

They were not the only ones. The U.S. military commander here, Col. David Paschal, said he feared that if Baghdad sent in additional troops, Kurdish leaders would retaliate by sending in their own militia from northern Iraq, creating a potentially disastrous confrontation.

"I just saw this continued escalation of force happening," he said. Baghdad is expected to withdraw the troops, according to U.S. commanders.

Paschal said he blames all the political parties for inflaming tensions to serve their interests. But he said it was hard to comprehend the level of mistrust.

"Negotiations here are, 'You give me everything I want, and I will walk away happy,' " he said. "It is hard for us to appreciate the level of ethnic hatred."