Turkey Warns US It Plans To Invade Northern Iraq Shortly After Elections

ANKARA — Turkey's military has begun preparing for what officials warned could result in a major invasion of neighboring Iraq.

Officials said the Turkish General Staff has drafted plans for an invasion by at least 20,000 troops into northern Iraq in early 2005. They said the General Staff has urged approval from the government of Prime Minister Recep Erdogan and discussed the proposed invasion with the United States.

"The current phase is to show the United States that we're serious," a Turkish government source said. "After the Iraqi elections in January, the Turkish military will be ready to move."

The military has called for a massive operation in northern Iraq to prevent Kurdish militias from controlling the area. The General Staff has been particularly alarmed by the reported Kurdish effort to drive out ethnic Turks from Kirkuk, the oil capital of northern Iraq and long claimed by Ankara.

Under the Turkish plan, the military would deploy at least 20,000 Turkish troops in an enclave south of the Iraqi-Turkish border. The force would focus on eliminating the Kurdish Workers Party and ensure the return of Turkmens to Kirkuk.

About 3,000 PKK fighters are said to be based in northern Iraq and have been sending insurgents and weaponry for attacks inside neighboring Turkey.

The United States has refused numerous Turkish appeals to eliminate the PKK strongholds.

On Oct. 14 Erdogan and his cabinet reviewed the General Staff's plan. That meeting, attended by Chief of Staff Gen. Hilmi Ozkok and Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul, discussed the rapid deployment of up to 40,000 troops in northern Iraq.

A scaled-down version of the military plan was discussed in the national security council on Oct. 27. The officials said that over the last week some units have already been deployed along the Iraqi-Turkish border.

Officials said the General Staff has sought to prepare two army divisions to cross the Iraqi border within 18 hours of any approval of the operation.

The first goal of the ground operation, supported by fighter-jets and attack helicopters, would be to destroy PKK strongholds in the Kandil mountains in northern Iraq.

The General Staff has warned the cabinet that Ankara could no longer ignore the Kurdish threat. Officials said the military has determined that Kurds from Iran and Syria have bolstered support for the PKK.

Iranian and Syrian Kurds, they said, have participated in PKK attacks against police and military targets in southeastern Turkey over the last week.

Officials said the General Staff has sought to obtain U.S. approval for the operation in northern Iraq. But Washington has not provided implicit approval.

The Erdogan government has sought to delay any Turkish military operation until after the European Union summit on Dec. 17. The government intends to spare the EU any pretext to delay a date for accession.

Officials said the Peshmerga are digging tunnels and establishing outposts outside Dahouk, near the Turkish border.

That's an eye opener. Thanks.

And here is another. I don't know how reliable the source is, but Mosul has been a hot bed the last couple of days.

Mosul May Be the Next Fallujah, Officials Fear

Posted 11-11-2004 10:55:00 (GMT 11-11-2004 16:55:0)

With war already raging in Fallujah in central Iraq, officials worry that the relatively peaceful north is on the brink of explosion, with fighting already flaring in the city of Mosul.

This assessment comes as the 4,000 soldiers of a Fort Lewis-based Stryker brigade face an increasingly violent uprising in the northern Iraq city, where insurgents in recent days have launched attacks with small arms, rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and bombs.

"The Mosul governor has invoked immediate curfew and all bridges are closed," U.S. Army Lt Col. Paul Hastings said.

Security and intelligence officials of the pro-U.S. Kurdish autonomous region of northern Iraq say they have concluded that Mosul, an ethnically diverse city of 2.5 million near the Syrian and Turkish borders, may be the next battlefield in the war between insurgents fighting the U.S.-led occupation force and Iraqi interim government.

"We are very worried about Mosul," said Kosrat Rasool Ali, a ranking leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which controls the eastern half of the autonomous Kurdish region. "The same terrorists who are in Fallujah are coming to Mosul. They are reorganizing themselves, they are coordinating with the other groups."

U.S. military officials have suggested that the lighter-than-expected military resistance against their Fallujah assault may mean that many of the insurgents had filtered out of the city to other population centers.

"Mosul is a big threat," said a high-level Kurdish security official in Irbil, about 50 miles west of Mosul, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It is going to be the second Fallujah, but even worse."

The action spiked this week, as insurgents faced with a U.S. assault on Fallujah, launched their own attacks in Mosul, as well as Baghdad and other cities farther to the south.

Yesterday in Mosul, firefights broke out between insurgents and U.S. and Iraqi forces, prompting the curfew and bridge closures.

The soldiers of the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division arrived in Iraq only within the past two months, replacing another Fort Lewis-based Stryker brigade that had completed its tour of duty.

They are part of Task Force Olympia, which is working with Iraq forces to try to improve security in Mosul.

Despite the efforts, the security situation in Mosul has been eroding in recent weeks, with Mosul suffering a surge in suicide and roadside bombings.

Two convoys and a police station were targeted in yesterday's attacks. Fighting then spread to other areas, with Reuters reporting that residents stayed inside as grenade blasts shook the city while U.S. helicopters flew overhead.

The casualties included two U.S. soldiers killed Monday, when mortar attacks hit their base. One of those soldiers was identified yesterday as Master Sgt. Steven Auchman, who worked with the 5th Air Support Operation in support of the Fort Lewis Stryker Brigade. He was scheduled to return from Iraq in January.

The casualties yesterday also included a foreign contractor who died in a Mosul convoy attack, according to U.S. Capt. Angela Bowman. Three Iraqi policemen and an Iraqi National Guard soldier also were killed, hospital and security officials said.

Mosul -- unlike the ethnically and religiously homogenous cities of the Sunni triangle, such as Samarra, Fallujah and Ramadi -- contains a mix of populations. The city has a significant Christian minority and large groups of Kurds and Turkomans, with ties to Turkey, as well as the Sunni Arabs who populate the ranks of the anti-U.S. insurgency.

After falling into chaos immediately after the U.S.-led invasion last year, Mosul became a relatively peaceful city under the control of Maj. Gen. David Petreaus and the U.S. Army's 20,000-strong 101st Airborne Division.

The city is now controlled by the leaner Task Force Olympia. It has some 8,500 soldiers, including the Stryker brigade that patrols in a new generation of eight-wheeled armored vehicles.

But some Iraqis say tensions in the city are being ratcheted up by the interim government and U.S. forces. Talaat al-Wazaan, leader of a Mosul-based nationalist Iraqi party, said the violence in the city was a direct result of provocations by the U.S.-led forces.

"What's happening in Mosul is that the government is making the city into a red area like they made Fallujah," he said. "What Mosul has is high patriotic feeling. We can't keep quiet about what the occupation forces are doing to provoke Mosul."

Task Force Olympia soldiers in recent weeks have worked with Iraqi police, National Guard and soldiers to target terrorists whose attacks have killed many innocent civilians, according to press statements.

Kurdish officials say Mosul has been a magnet for insurgents seeping into the country from Syria.

Attacks on the city's Christians and Kurds have increased. Officials in Baghdad have received reports that Islamic enforcers have run rampant throughout the city, ordering non-Muslim women to wear scarves at the university, said Tahir Khalaf al-Bakaa, Iraq's minister of higher education.

"This is becoming a big problem in Mosul," he said. "We are walking on minefields."

Kurdish officials say that between 100 and 250 Kurdish members of Ansar al-Islam, a violent Islamic group holed up in the Kurdish mountains until the war last year, have infiltrated the once-prosperous oil center.

Recruitment mistakes early in the occupation have riddled the security forces in Mosul with insurgents, said Dana Ahmad Majid, regional director of Asayesh, Sulaymaniyah province's security and intelligence service, which claims to have planted sources in insurgent strongholds such as Fallujah and Baquba.

Seattle Times

WHY DO SO MANY FREEPERS SUPPORT MARXIST TERRORISTS?!

The PKK is not mainstream Kurds.

In January 2004 the US Government announced that Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) is a terrorist organization. The Coalition Provisional Authority, coalition forces and Iraqi security forces will treat the PKK as terrorists

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/pkk.htm

Partiya Karkeran Kurdistan [PKK] (Kurdistan Workers Party)

"Established in 1974 as a Marxist-Leninist insurgent group primarily composed of Turkish Kurds, by the late 1990s the PKK had moved beyond rural-based insurgent activities to include urban terrorism. . .

"Since 1984 the separatist PKK waged a violent terrorist insurgency in southeast Turkey, directed against both security forces and civilians. . .

"The PKK committed numerous abuses against civilians in northern Iraq throughout 1997. For example, on August 4, five persons were reportedly kidnaped from the village of Gunda Jour by a PKK band. Iraqi Kurds reported that on October 23, a PKK unit killed 14 civilians (10 of them children) and wounded 9 others in attacks on the villages of Korka, Chema, Dizo, and Selki. . .

"In April 2002 at its 8th Party Congress, the PKK changed its name to the Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress (KADEK). . .

"In January 2004 the US Government announced that Kurdistan Workers Party and its aliases, the Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress and the Kurdistan People's Congress were terrorist organizations that were designated as such under US law. The Coalition Provisional Authority, coalition forces and Iraqi security forces will treat the PKK/KADEK/Kongra-Gel as terrorists. . .

"Ankara claimed that about 2,000 Kurdish fighters had crossed into Turkey from hideouts in mountainous northern Iraq in early June 2004." [End excerpt, my emphasis]

Turkey has "invaded" mountainous northern Iraq chasing the terrorists a few times before.

On the other matter, Kirkuk, where is the proof that Turkey intends to "take" Kirkuk? Turkey is doing business with the mainstream Kurds.

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