Posted on 05/06/2006 6:18:58 PM PDT by Flavius
Kurds Threaten Attacks on Iran Agence France Presse
MOUNT QANDIL, Iraq, 7 May 2006 — A top Kurdish guerilla yesterday threatened to launch hit-and-run attacks on Iran, saying the Shiite country planned to bomb his group’s positions inside Iraq to gain Turkey’s support against the US. “We have the right to launch attacks against Iranian forces,” said Cemil “Cuma” Bayik, the de facto leader of the feared Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), a quasi-Socialist rebel movement entrenched in a decades-long guerilla war for independence in the majority Kurdish southeast of Turkey.
He said recent Iranian artillery shelling on PKK camps in Iraqi Kurdistan meant that the rebel group’s battle could spread to Iran. “We are on the defense. If we’re not attacked we won’t either. We believe politics and democracy are a better path,” Bayik said as his personal guard of a handful of male and female fighters in Kurdish dress waited outside a small hut while he spoke to AFP.
But Bayik said PKK “intelligence reports” suggested Iran was preparing for a new shelling of rebel positions. “We can’t afford to face them in open battle. We’ll make hit-and-run raids with our Kalashnikovs, rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns and mortars.”
The PKK consists of thousands of male and female Kurdish fighters who profess a “Democratic Socialist” philosophy, under which women’s equality plays an important role and in whose fighting ranks sexual relations are not allowed.
To join, members have to renounce worldly possessions and cut links with the outside world in their quest for Kurdish independence and a new social order in which women will no longer be “enslaved,” Bayik said.
Bayik blamed the offensive by Iran on the Islamic republic’s desire to please neighbor and NATO member Turkey as Western pressure mounts over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. “They will do anything to make sure Turkey is not with the US in a fight against Iran,” said Bayik, who commands the rebels in Iraq and Turkey while PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan serves a life sentence in a Turkish prison.
An estimated 25 to 35 million Kurds live in Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria. Ankara has long urged Iraqi and US forces to root out the PKK from Iraq’s northern region, which they have occupied since the 1980s war between Iran and Iraq. Turkey says some 5,000 armed PKK militants have found refuge in northern Iraq since 1999.
Bayik said the figure was lower but would not provide a specific number, saying it was a “military secret.” Iran “will not dare send in troops against us unless the situation in Iraq deteriorates further,” Bayik said. “However, they will continue with the bombings.” He said the Iranian attacks were also aimed to pressure Baghdad as it struggles to form a government.
Kurdish leaders in Iraq have promised to raise the issue of the northern oil city of Kirkuk which they demand be integrated into a Kurdish autonomous zone after a cabinet is formed. Iran is “trying to help some factions in Iraq work against the Kurdish nation so that Kirkuk doesn’t join the (autonomous zone). This is happening as the new government is being created and the Kirkuk problem is discussed,” Bayik said.
“If the Kurds go to war with the Arabs over Kirkuk we will help them. We don’t just fight for ourselves,” Bayik said adding that such a conflict was “possible.”
Seems DOS can't make up their minds
Actually, the PKK is there. Look at the bottom of page 205: they're listed under "Kongra-Gel (PKK)" aka "Kurdistan Worker's Party"
The description:
"Kongra-Gel was founded by Abdullah Ocalan in 1974 as a Marxist-Leninist separatist organization and formally named the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in 1978. The group, composed primarily of Turkish Kurds, began in 1984 its campaign of armed violence, which has resulted in some 30,000 casualties."
"The group conducted attacks on Turkish diplomatic and commercial facilities in dozens of West European cities in 1993 and again in spring 1995. In an attempt to damage Turkey’s tourist industry, the then-PKK bombed tourist
sites and hotels and kidnapped foreign tourists in the early-to-mid-1990s. Turkish authorities have confirmed or suspect that the group is responsible for dozens of bombings that occurred throughout 2005 in western Turkey, particularly in Istanbul, but also in resort areas on the western coast where foreign tourists, among others, were killed."
Yup. I see now. I don't know why they changed the way they list them. They should have them listed with the rest like in the past.
Thanks for pointing that out.
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