Kurds help to prepare for attack

In the mountain city of Dohuk, in northern Iraq, US Special Forces are secretly preparing the way for the great American armies expected to invade Iraq in the next few weeks.

"We will help any kind of force which comes to destroy the Iraqi regime," said Faisal Amin Rostinki, a veteran Kurdish soldier who is head of security for the 23,000-strong Kurdish force with headquarters in Dohuk. While confirming the presence of the American soldiers he refused to give their exact location, saying only: "They have no single base here."

The purpose of the US Special Forces is to prepare the ground for a full-scale American invasion by scouting and gathering intelligence. The Kurds have always had up-to-the-minute information about the disposition, equipment and morale of the 1st and 5th Iraqi army corps which defend the key cities of Mosul and Kirkuk.

There are more than 100 US Special Forces now based in the Kurdish cities of Dohuk, Arbil, Salahudin and Sulaimaniyah, according to well-informed sources.

The nature of the US assault on northern Iraq, inevitable if a war begins, has been up in the air since the Turkish parliament narrowly turned down a deal under which 62,000 US troops and 310 aircraft would be based in Turkey. The 4th Infantry Division would then strike south from the Turkish border towards Mosul, the largest city in northern Iraq, whose loss would be a severe psychological blow to Saddam Hussein's government in Baghdad.

The US wants early in a war to capture the oil province of Kirkuk in case Hussein intends to blow up the oilfields as he did in Kuwait in 1991. It has also warned the Kurdish leaders against sending their own soldiers to take Kirkuk, which the Kurds regard as a Kurdish city forcibly Arabised since 1975.

If the Turkish parliament reverses the decision on US use of Turkish bases the American invasion will go ahead as planned. If no bases are available then the US will probably try a more complicated attack with greater use of airborne troops. It would also have a greater need for Kurdish co-operation and in particular the old Iraqi airbase at Harir, 45km outside Arbil.

Kurdish leaders expect Hussein to fight for Mosul and Kirkuk but make a final stand in greater Baghdad. He has recently withdrawn one elite Republican Guard division from Mosul, relocating it further south around Tikrit, his home province.

General Babaker Zebari, the overall commander of Kurdish forces in Dohuk, is now in the US, but Washington is unlikely to shift its opposition to the Kurdish army taking part in the war for fear of the Turkish reaction.

The relationship between the Kurds and the US is openly cordial but there is strong suspicion that the US will allow a Turkish army to take over territory in northern Kurdistan.

Sami Abdul-Rahman, deputy premier of the Kurdistan regional government, said Kurds were extremely worried by Turkey's stated aim of sending troops if there is a war.

Turkey says its troops would prevent a flood of Kurdish refugees entering Turkey if there is a US-led war to overthrow Hussein, and protect Kurdistan's Turkmen minority, culturally and linguistically close to Turks.

Ankara also wants to stop any attempt to establish a Kurdish homeland, mindful of possible consequences among its own large Kurdish minority, although Iraq's Kurds say they have no plans to do so.

Abdul-Rahman said at his home in Arbil, the largest city in Kurdish-administered Iraq, "Whichever way the Turks come, our people will resist them. Believe me, if we are faced with death or military occupation, the first would be lighter."

He said it would complicate an anti-Saddam coalition if Kurds and Turks fought each other in the middle of a larger war.

"It would be worse if they came with the Americans. We don't want to be seen to be fighting part of the coalition," he said.

He added that Turkey had already said its troops would not fight the Iraqi army if it entered Iraq. "So what are they coming for? To repress Kurds."

- INDEPENDENT and REUTERS