Fear of ethnic conflict charges Mosul unrest

[leftchick]

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/11/30/fear_of_ethnic_conflict_charges_mosul_unrest/

<snip>

MOSUL, Iraq -- After Saddam Hussein was ousted and his security apparatus collapsed, many Iraqis predicted ethnic war. They feared ethnic militias like the Kurdish Peshmerga would fill the security vacuum and engage in a bloody power struggle.

Such dire predictions failed to materialize in the 18 months following Hussein's fall. But the recent explosion of violence in this ethnically divided northern city has deteriorated to the brink of widespread ethnic conflict.

<snip>
American officers blame the untamed insurgency against the interim Iraqi government and their US protectors on a lethal marriage of convenience between a reconstituted Ba'ath Party and a well-developed Islamic movement in Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city.

While the Americans have tolerated the unofficial presence of thousands of Kurdish Peshmerga, who don't fall under Iraqi central government command, they worry that Mosul's volatile mix could touch off wider ethnic carnage.

[maddezmom]

1. Negroponte's plan:

~snip~
"I am a Kurd," Shakur, 42, said cheerfully last week, as his tank battalion trained with 100 Soviet tanks and armored personnel carriers that his fighters raided from Saddam Hussein’s army in April 2003. "If we are ever attacked, I will stop being a regular Iraqi soldier and become a peshmerga again."

Iraqi Kurdistan’s de facto independence from Baghdad -- and the popular desire in the three northern provinces to secede from Iraq -- could pose one of the thorniest problems over the coming year for the ethnic, religious, and political factions trying to craft a new Iraqi federal constitution.

The importance of the Kurds is not lost on US officials; on Monday, as American forces launched the attack on Fallujah, US Ambassador John Negroponte flew from Baghdad to Sulaymaniyah for a day to ask leaders from the PUK to commit to a smooth national election process.

As the sole oasis of stability and unwavering support for US policy in Iraq, the Kurds have made themselves an indispensable linchpin of Washington’s hope to fashion a democratic Iraq. But the Kurds are wary allies, suspicious that the United States will barter Kurdish autonomy for the support of Iraq’s Arab majority. And public opinion in the Kurdish provinces leans heavily toward declaring independence: about 1.7 million people signed a petition in April demanding a popular referendum on secession, and the independence movement has scheduled another conference for this week.

http://www.kurdmedia.com/news.asp?id=5760