Kurdish effort to recruit disloyal Iraqi soldiers pays off

Star Tribune ^ | March 14, 2003 | Paul McEnroe

[Hadean]

SULAYMANIYAH, IRAQ -- A Kurdish political leader who commands thousands of Peshmerga fighters said Thursday that more than 100 Iraqi army officers and intelligence agents in Kirkuk have responded to his underground letters requesting that they identify the names, locations and assignments of key Iraqi commanders in the city.

The campaign to secretly recruit disloyal Iraqi soldiers and agents has resulted in up-to-date intelligence on how well the city and its outlying oil refinery and oil fields are being defended, Muhammad Haji Mahmood said. It also has helped his forces target people for retribution for their roles in ethnic cleansing and brutality against the Kurds, he said.

Mahmood, head of the Kurdistan Social Democrat Party (KSDP) since 1993 and recognized throughout Kurdistan as a legendary fighter, said that the letters from the disloyal Iraqis indicate that the Iraqi military is unlikely to put up stiff resistance in defense of Kirkuk.

"I think the city will fall in a day because of what we are learning," he said. "They do not want to fight when it comes down to it."

Mahmood said that extra care has been taken to provide the helpful Iraqis with ways to protect themselves from being killed during an attack.

"They will have in their pockets the letters that were signed and sent out by me, which contain their code names and numbers for them to show when they are surrendering," Mahmood, 49, said. "It will show our forces during the attack that these are the people who cooperated with us before the attack and that they should not be harmed."

He added that on Wednesday he signed 500 letters that were then sent out to recruit more Iraqis.

Sitting in his office in a heavily armed compound in Sulaymaniyah, Mahmood pulled a large bundle of letters from his briefcase, summarizing some of the Iraqi replies to his entreaties.

"You'd be amazed at how high-ranking some of these people are who are cooperating," he said as he read portions of a letter from a Baath political leader in Kirkuk. The politician provided names and addresses of other party leaders targeted by Mahmood's Peshmerga fighters. The man's letter contained the code name he'd use when surrendering.

Scanning another letter, he outlined how an informant in one sector of Kirkuk identified that sector's head of security.

Mahmood also said that shepherds in the Kirkuk area have reported being contacted by Iraqi soldiers planning their surrender. "They asked the herders to bring civilian clothes back to them," so they could get out of their military uniforms as quickly as possible and avoid becoming targets, he said.

[McGavin999]

I'm not sure how much these officers should be trusted. What's to keep them from "helping" just to get these letters so they can pretend to be friends?

[Hadean]

They have to surrender on the front line before considered "friendly".

[Paradox]

Paybacks are a BITCH, and this could get REAL ugly..

[Boundless]

> Paybacks are a BITCH, and this could get REAL ugly..

Not could - will. Count on it.

Most Iraqi civilians above the rank of "serf", and
most soliders above the rank of private have been
complicit in the Hussein regime and probably have
any number of people who want to see them dead.

By comparison to what is likely in Iraq, the French
collaborators were handled with kid gloves by the
French people after WW-II.

The coalition will be limited in its ability to
control the retribution.

The higher you go in the Iraqi food chain, the more
black marks in Santa's big book. These people are
stuck between Iraq and a hard place, so to speak.
They are in grave personal danger, and some of them
could be quite dangerous as a result.