Replies to post #1000 on Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Some interesting revelations from Sadr's political spokesman...

Could be connected to confirmed clashes between Iran and Turkish Kurd rebels and possibly Israel’s involvement.

Per a report in the latest issue of the New Yorker, Israel is actively involved in supporting the Iraqi Kurds, who are fast sowing the seeds of their independence, albeit often under the convenient guise of a new Iraqi federalism. According to the article by veteran writer Seymour Hersh, who has aptly unearthed the secrets of Israel's nuclearization, not to mention the Abu Ghraib prison torture fiasco, Israel's secret service, Mossad, is engaged in covert operations among Iranian and Syrian Kurds, in addition to training Iraqi Kurd commandos and setting up the latter as a counterweight to Shi'ite militias.
#msg-3423259

-Am

Sadr Satisfied with Turkey, Opposes Federation


Radical Iraqi Shiite Leader Muqtada Al-Sadr's organization is apparently pleased with the approach that Turkey and the Turkish public are taking towards the invasion of Iraq.

Sheikh Ahmet Al-Saybani, who is Sadr's political spokesman and is responsible for the 'Mahdi Army' in Necef (Najaf), disclosed on Wednesday that Sadr's organization paid close attention to the Turkish demonstrations against the invasion. "We know that the Turkish public is against the invasion. We will not forget the support they have given us," Saybani said.

The Shiite representative added that they were in contact with many political organizations throughout the world. He emphasized that Sadr's group is opposed to a federation that might lead to the division of Iraq.

Saybani spoke with ZAMAN at Sadr's headquarters in Najaf. He reiterated that they do not want Turkish troops to come to Iraq. "This issue had come to the agenda at the beginning of the war. Exhibiting the solidity of democracy, the Turkish parliament did not allow this. Turkey knows that the invasion of Iraq is something 'dirty'. So, it does not send troops to Iraq."

Saybani pointed out that in terms of its own benefit, Turkey had every reason to want to send troops to Iraq; however, Ankara followed 'a very bright' policy and refrained from sending troops.

Saybani also quashed American claims that the Sadr militia was supported with arms from abroad. He said that Sadr's men did not need weapons to carry out their resistance. He added that Sadr's organization was in contact with many political groups throughout the world, including the Spanish King and some opposition parties in Australia, to justify that their organization was right.

On the topic of Iraq possibly adopting a federative structure, the Shiite spokesman said, "Our neighbors Turkey, Syria and Iran will suffer the greatest damage out of a situation like this. This kind of a development will cause everyone to suffer."

'Kurdish people should not forget the US promises in the past'

About claims that Kurdish Peshmergas joined the invading forces in the fight against the resisters, Saybani responded with harsh words for the Kurds. "The Kurdish people should not forget that the US, which promised them [Kurds] many things, never kept any of its promises. The Peshmergas should keep in mind that they too might one day experience what we going through today."

Saybani also disclosed that Sadr's organization is paying close attention to the political developments in Bagdat (Baghdad). He explained that by accepting the legality of the government formed by Iyad Allawi, they [Sadr's group] conditioned the invasion forces to leave Iraq.

"However, Allawi said that he wanted these forces to stay in the country. In 2005, there will be many great political changes in Iraq. Our group may enter into politics. There may be someone other than Muqtada Al Sadr leading the party," Saybani told.



07.08.2004
Foreign News Services
Istanbul


http://www.zaman.com/?bl=international&alt=&trh=20040708&hn=10178

[sarals]

Why would the Iranians want to give the US an excuse to invade? I can understand why the US wants to provoke them... but why would they fall for it? What is in it for them to gain? Do they think they can takeover Iraq?

[Amaunet]

Turkey and Iran launch seperate operations against Pkk deny alliance


Turkey not to pull troops from northern Iraq: General Staff




www.chinaview.cn 2004-07-09 07:12:26

ANKARA, July 8 (Xinhuanet) -- The deputy chief of the Turkish General Staff said Thursday that Turkey's military existence in the north of Iraq would not end until the "eradication" of the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK).

"Withdrawal of Turkish military existence in north of Iraq is out of question until eradication of the terrorist organization," Ilker Basbug told a monthly press conference. "It is a security need of Turkey," he added.

Asked about operations against the PKK in Iran, Basbug said Iranian security forces have been conducting serious operations against the organization in border areas with Turkey. "These operations are absolutely not carried out jointly by the Turkish and Iranian Armed Forces. However, they are under way," Basbug said.

The Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) on Wednesday quoted Iranian Deputy Interior Minister Ali Asgar Ahmadi as saying that eight militants of the PKK and two members of the Iranian forces were killed in a recent clash.

Iranian forces had reportedly launched an operation on July 2 against the PKK on Turkey's border and that at least 16 people had been killed since then.

The PKK, also known as KADEK and Kongra-Gel, announced in May that truce would end as of June 1 and that it would renew its separatist fight, which has killed more than 30,000 people in Turkey's southeast region.

The PKK, termed as a terrorist group by the United States, sustained a major blow in 1999 when its leader, Abdullah Ocalan, was captured in Kenya.

The group later retreated to the mountains of northern Iraq, where it is estimated to have up to 5,000 armed militants, announcing a unilateral truce and pledging to renounce armed struggle.

However, the Turkish military never let up in its campaign to crush the PKK.

About 2,000 PKK members have entered into Turkey in recent months from northern Iraq to launch attacks against Turkish military targets. Enditem

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-07/09/content_1584949.htm

[Amaunet]

Iran army in new clashes with Turkish Kurdish rebels


TEHRAN, July 10 (AFP) - Iranian troops killed two Turkish Kurdish rebels in clashes close to the Iraqi border, Tehran dailies said Saturday, amid reports of a major offensive by Tehran on Ankara's behalf.

The latest fighting took place on Thursday near the town of Baneh, in the far northwest of Kordestan province, some 200 kilometres (125 miles) from the nearest part of Turkey, the papers said.

"These people had illegally crossed the border, ruined border villages and extorted money from residents," the Hambastegi newspaper quoted an unidentified official as saying.

The new fighting comes hot on the heels of deadly clashes near the Turkish border between Iranian troops and the rebels from the former Kurdistan Workers' Party, now known as Kongra-Gel.

Deputy Interior Minister Ali Asghar Ahmadi said two Iranian soldiers and eight rebels were killed in the June 28 clashes. A pro-Kurdish news agency said 16 soldiers and four rebels died.

The Germany-based MHA news agency said Iranian security forces had launched "a comprehensive operation" against the former PKK late last month after the rebels abandoned a five-year unilateral ceasefire with Ankara on June 1.

Ahmadi is himself to travel to Turkey Monday to discuss joint moves to tackle armed groups holed up in the mountainous border region.

Turkish defence sources have already hailed what they described as a "large-scale" operation against the former PKK by the Iranian army.

Turkey and Iran have in recent years intensified cooperation on security matters, including against the former PKK, after a chilly period during which the two sides accused each other of sheltering their respective dissidents.

Iran has a large Kurdish minority of its own and shares Turkey's determination to stamp out any moves by the community towards greater autonomy.

Some 37,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands driven from their homes during Ankara's suppression of the PKK's 1984-99 insurgency in southeastern Turkey.

Most of the group's militants are since believed to have taken refuge in northern Iraq.

[Amaunet]

Al-Qaida's Kurdish allies find home in Iran

Kurdish Islamic militants driven out of northern Iraq seem to be regrouping just across the Iranian border.

14.07.2004

By IWPR reporters in Mariwan, Iran and Biyara, Iraq
The Kurdish militant group Ansar al-Islam is reorganising in Iranian Kurdistan, say residents of the area, Iraqi security sources and local Iranian officials. The radical group's presence - an open secret in the small towns of this mountainous region - appears to have, at the very least, the acquiescence of the Iranian authorities, and some sources report that Iranian intelligence offers logistics and possibly military training. Indeed, IWPR spoke to an Iranian official who says that he was ordered to assist the militants, as well as a local Kurd who was recruited by them for training. Despite the ideological gap between the radical Sunni Islamism of the Ansar and the Shi'ite Islamism of the Tehran government, both Iranian and Iraqi observers believe that there is room for an alliance of convenience between the two parties.

The bargaining chip

While the Kurdish militants need room to rebuild, the Iranians can use them to undercut the influence of secular Kurdish nationalism in the area, and simultaneously have a bargaining chip in dealings with the US. Ansar al-Islam was established in September 2001, first under the name Jund al-Islam, in Iraqi Kurdistan. Most of its founding members were Iraqi Kurdish Islamists who fought in Afghanistan and had strong ties with al-Qaida. According to Ansar prisoners in Iraq, many received al-Qaida training in Afghanistan and then returned to Iraq to conduct attacks against the secular Kurdish political parties, and later against US targets in Iraq. Ansar's fighters fled the mountains of Iraq last March after an American cruise missile pounded their headquarters. Ground assaults on Ansar-held areas continued throughout the war, and most of the surviving fighters, thought to be close to 800, fled east into Iran. "When we were fleeing to Iran after the US bombing, the Iranian authorities singled out the Ansar fighters and their families, and took them away in military cars," said Golala Salih, a resident of the Iraqi town Tawela which sits on the Iraq-Iran border and was the former stronghold of Ansar al-Islam. "They did not let us [ordinary refugees] cross into Iran." Like most non-Ansar people named in this story, Salih is not her real name, as it has been changed for her protection. Most Ansar operatives are identified but they use code names, which change with their location.

Mixing with the locals

The Ansar gunmen and their families who crossed the border are now in camps at the foot of an Iranian mountain range - the first in Baramawa village, 20 kilometers west of Mariwan, and the Darbandi Dizly camp further to the west, say residents of the area. In addition to being outsiders, the militants, who wear the short-hemmed garment and grow the trimmed beard associated with Sunni radicals, are highly conspicuous in the region. The area is renowned for its spectacular beauty, and, perhaps more importantly for the Ansar gunmen, it is surrounded by forests and rugged mountains and lies close to the Iraqi border. Ansar fighters and their families are now mixed in with the local villages, leaving the residents feeling fearful and resentful. "Since these gunmen and their families have been living here, we have been in constant fear," said Mam Rasoul, an elderly resident of the village. "The US might fire missiles at them, or the Kurdish peshmerga (soldiers) might come here to get them." Others are resentful of the apparent financial support the Islamic fighters are receiving. "They get food rations and money every month," said Gulnaz, an elderly woman who lives in Daranaxa village near the Darbandi Dizly Ansar camp. She says that the Ansar group's living standards are better than long time residents of the area. A high-ranking Iraqi security official said that while the foot soldiers of Ansar are living in these camps "their leadership and cohorts in other radical Islamic parties are spread over the Iranian Kurdish cities and towns of Bokan, Sanandij, Mariwan, and Saqiz".

Prominent newcomers

Two prominent Kurdish newcomers in the area bear the same names as Iraqi Ansar activists known to Iraqi intelligence. Both of them have been spotted by locals going to a three-story house in Mariwan's Zrebar Road occupied by Iraqi Kurds with beards and short-hemmed trousers, which locals say was until recently one of Ansar's two headquarters in the town. The second is a two-story marble building near its Stadium Roundabout. One of the two local Ansar leaders is Sheikh Jamal, who lives in the Laylakh district of Mariwan. His neighbors told IWPR that he spent the last five years in Afghanistan fighting with al-Qaida and that he is now teaching military tactics to Ansar al-Islam new recruits. The Iraqi security official said that they know of a Sheikh Jamal but could not confirm that he is the Mariwan Ansar official. "They use different code names in different cities," said the official. "Some had a codename in the town and different one in the mountain." The second leader is Zryan Hawleri, whom Iraqi officials say is a top Ansar operative from Arbil in Iraq, now living in Mariwan. Residents of Mariwan say that an out-of-town Kurd by that name currently owns a small corner shoe repair store. A nearby shopkeeper said that he does not believe that Hawleri has come to Mariwan for business, "He is not working most of the time and receives many visitors."

New recruits

According to a local Iranian Interior Ministry official, Hawleri has probably received a new identity from Iranian intelligence. The official, who disapproves of the Islamists' presence in the region and fears they will radicalize the local population, showed IWPR a copy of an Iranian ID card with Hawleri's picture. It was issued by the Islamic Hawza of Iran, the Islamic Shi’ite school of Iran, with the name of Zryan Ali Pour, an Iranian surname. The official said he was ordered by the Iranian Ittilaat intelligence service to provide special permits, required by foreigners to rent houses, to other likely militants, including two Afghans wearing Salafi garb who rented a mud-brick house in a district heavily populated by Ansar members. A neighbor said that during Ramadan the two men received 15 to 20 visitors every night. Most had long beards and short Kurdish trousers, another Salafi trademark. "The meetings would last until midnight," the neighbour said. The official, as well as an IWPR reporter, have also seen Kurdish Islamists being given rides in the Iranian-made pickups and landcruisers favoured by the Ittalat. IWPR also met a young man who claims he signed up with the group in the town of Sanandij for US$250 a month. "Ansar al-Islam was able to attract 150 to 200 young Kurds from the poor neighborhoods of the town," the recruit said. He said he is not a supporter of the group's ideology but joined only for the income. He further said that he disapproves of Ansar tactics which he says exploits needy people. "Leading people in Ansar would not themselves do what they are asking the poor foot soldiers to do," he said. He told IWPR, on the condition of anonymity, that the Sanandij branch of the group has ties with a newly formed group in Pakistan called Tabligh, or proselytizing. Once Ansar leaders feel they can trust a recruit, he said, they are sent to the Iranian city of Zahedan on the Pakistani border for political and military training - and while he has not been trained himself, 35 new recruits left for training in two camps in May. The local ministry of interior official also said that militants are sent for training in Baluchistan, the region of Iran in which Zahedan is located.

Attacking Kurdish secularism

An Iranian journalist who has extensively covered militant affairs in Afghanistan says that before the toppling of the Taliban regime, Kurdish militants received training in the Afghan city of Herat. After 2001, he says, the Iranians allowed fleeing al-Qaida operatives to set up in two camps on the Afghan and Pakistani borders, one of which lies near Zahedan. The Ansar presence in Iranian Kurdistan has coincided with the growth of Sunni radicalism in the region. Mullah Muhammed is the most prominent preacher of Yakshawa village near the city of Bokan. Locals refer to this Iranian Kurdish cleric as the Ansar head there. Mullah Muhammed is a popular preacher. One young government employee who attends Muhammed's Friday sermons regularly says that he understands Islam "better than anyone else" and can explain things very clearly. "He attacks the Kurdish secular parties of Iran and Iraq, and says that jihad is the only right path for Islam," said the government worker. Ansar also maintains what appears to be a propaganda apparatus in Mariwan. The sermons and speeches of Ansar leaders and other radical Sunnis are on sale in the town's shops. Studio Dangi Islam, the Voice of Islam, is a record shop that sells CDs of speeches of Mullah Krekar, the Ansar leader, Osama Bin Laden, Taliban leader Mullah Omer, the Iraqi Kurdish Islamic Group leader Ali Bapir, and other hard-line mullahs. It also sells video CDs of Ansar battles in Iraqi Kurdistan. In a number of bookstores, some of the most prominent titles are biographies of Bin Laden and Mullah Omer that were published in early 2003 by the Iranian ministry of culture. The ministry banned them in mid-2003 but copies still circulate.

This article originally appeared in Iraqi Crisis Report, produced by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR). Iraqi Crisis Report is supported by the UK Foreign Office and the US State Department.


http://www.isn.ethz.ch/infoservice/secwatch/index.cfm?service=cwn&parent=detail&menu=8&s....