6,000 Kurdish fighters to guard Iraq oil installations

[Barrett808]

Source: AFP

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq • The Iraqi government will soon dispatch about 6,000 former Kurdish guerrillas to protect electric and oil infrastructure from insurgents attacks, a security official said yesterday.

"A brigade of 6,000 peshmerga will be sent to an area southwest of Kirkuk to protect electric generators between Kirkuk and Baiji," Brigadier General Jabbar Yawar, a spokesman for the Kurdish Regional Government security force said.

At least 55 of the 179 massive transmission towers running between the oil hub of Kirkuk and the central Iraqi refinery city of Baiji have been torn down in recent years, contributing to Iraq's frequent power outages.

Yawar said a delegation from the Kurdish government agreed to dispatch the force after talks with Iraq's defence minister earlier this month and are only awaiting the final approval of Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki.

Read more: http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=Gulf%2C+Middle+East+%26+Africa&month=July2007&file=World_News2007071864537.xml

[dave_p]

1. All your Kirkuk are belong to us

Southwest - i.e. in the more Arab part of the province. I wonder if they'll happily withdraw if the December plebiscite goes against them? Odd too that these are the folk keenest on oil privatization (and joint airfield development with Israeli firms). What a joke.

[seemslikeadream]

2. nice way for the PKK to get their hands on some weapons

I wonder how Turkey feels about this?

[acmavm]

3. Sheesh, it just get more screwed up and weirder and bloodier

by the day.

[ohio2007]

4. to bad the Iraqi army was dismissed as not needed.

They would have been better deployed along such pipelines.

[MissWaverly]

5. why aren't they safeguarding the neighborhoods

where innocent people are being blown to bits every day, that's where they should be. This has been about the oil from day 1.

[roamer65]

6. ...and soon to be replaced by 200,000 Turkish troops.

:sarcasm:

[sabra]

7. Kurds to deploy militias in Kirkuk

Source: Azzaman

The Kurdish regional government is to station thousands of its militiamen on the outskirts of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, according to region’s deputy prime minister, Kusart Koran.

Koran said the Kurdish government, which controls three provinces in the north, will deploy nearly 6,000 Kurdish militiamen, locally known as Peshmerga.

The move comes following devastating car bomb attacks in the city, most of them targeting offices of the two main Kurdish factions ruling the region.

The Kurds want to add Kirkuk and its prolific oil fields to their enclave in the north despite regional concerns and opposition from certain ethnic groups in the city.


Read more: http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news/2007-07-18/kurd1.htm

[acmavm]

8. Well here we go. Another interesting and catastrophic twist to

the saga of the 'War on Terra'.

[siri2k]

9. Kick! n/t