The Assyrian Democratic Organization
American intelligence officials have been working alongside Kurdish officials in recent weeks, and recruiters for an American-sponsored opposition group have been selecting candidates for a program to train scouts and translators that one day may help American forces inside Iraq, according to Kurdish and Western officials.
American military planners have visited secluded corners of the country to examine potential basing sites for use in a war, according to a Western expert familiar with the activity.
No American military forces are based here yet, Kurdish officials say, and recent Turkish and Arabic news reports of sizable military deployments appear unfounded.
But teams from the Central Intelligence Agency (news – web sites) have been working with the principal political parties in the Kurdish region the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in the east, and the Kurdistan Democratic Party in the west for upward of two months. The C.I.A. teams have become a familiar sight for Kurds, who see them traveling in convoys with armed local guards.
One team appeared Thursday at the local supermarket here, arriving as a New York Times photographer stepped outside with his purchases. The Americans were accompanied by Kurdish gunmen who wore the distinctive red-and-white headdress of the Barzanis, the ruling clan in the Kurdistan Democratic Party.
Kurdish officials say the Americans have interviewed members of a Muslim militant group who have been captured by Kurdish security forces, looking for links to Al Qaeda. The group, Ansar al Islam, has been waging holy war against the secular Kurdish government, with some tactical success.
Other duties of the Americans are less clear. But local officials say that after a long absence, the American teams have been analyzing the political and military situation in the autonomous zone and meeting important figures, deepening Washington’s understanding of the region. They are also building relationships that would be valuable if the United States leads a war against President Saddam Hussein (news – web sites)’s government and later occupies this historically unstable land.
The independent northern zone is a tenuous entity, existing with scant economic and military resources in territory once controlled by Mr. Hussein. His forces have ruthlessly killed civilians here in the past.
It is also ringed by neighbors Iran, Turkey and Syria that express deep misgivings over the intensifying Western involvement with the Kurds, and with the possible spread of Kurdish democracy to their own independence-minded Kurdish minorities.
It is no surprise then that the American presence, welcomed by many Kurds, has caused palpable discomfort elsewhere.
In one testy exchange this month, the head of the Iranian intelligence office in the eastern city of Sulaimaniya visited a deputy of Jamal Talabani, the leader of the Patriotic Union, to register a complaint. The Iranian official protested Kurdish cooperation with the C.I.A., according to a Kurdish official familiar with the exchange. “He said, `Why have you invited them here? We should not have these Americans in the region,’ ” the official said.
“He was told, `This is a free society. We need them here, and we like them here. We are free to invite anyone’s assistance as we choose.’ ”
Local officials say that apart from the C.I.A presence, there has been the American-sponsored effort to recruit guides, civil affairs specialists and translators to work with Western forces should they enter Iraq.
Yura Mossa, chief of the minority Assyrian Democratic Party in the northwestern city of Zakho, said senior party officials had met with an unspecified group of Americans and then had asked local party offices to select applicants. The program, underwritten by the United States Congress as part of Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, would provide training, perhaps in Hungary, for the recruits.
“We have registered some names, and we have told them we are ready to register some other names, and to send young people to help America,” Mr. Mossa said. “In the case of ousting Saddam Hussein, all the people of Iraq Kurds, Assyrian, Arabs will be ready to help.”
Mr. Mossa said that none of the men his office had signed up had departed for training and that they were awaiting further instructions.
A similar effort has occurred in Sulaimaniya, where a former head of the Iraqi Communist Party has been registering names and circulating a questionnaire as a sort of job application. His activities have been reported in the local media and in The Christian Science Monitor, and have angered Kurdish political parties.
“He is a clown,” one Kurdish official said. “He had no local reputation and no money, and all of a sudden he has a new office and an Internet connection, and he’s handing out these letters. The Americans should not work with him.”
A Western expert familiar with the region said the recruiting was coordinated by the Iraq National Congress, an opposition group based in London, and was unrelated to the C.I.A. teams here.
That led a Kurdish official to say that American government agencies often seem split in their agendas, and that sometimes it was not possible to determine the direction and shape of American policy.
Kurdish leaders are generally supportive of the American presence, and are grateful for protection provided by American and British warplanes since the United Nations northern no-flight zone was established in 1991. But Kurds also remember engagements with the United States that ended in what they consider betrayal.
The United States encouraged Kurdish uprisings in 1975 and 1991, then withheld support while local guerrillas were routed.
An American-encouraged coup attempt against Mr. Hussein in 1996 also ended badly. Iraqi security services discovered the plan and sent security agents into Kurdish neighborhoods to kill opposition members.
As planning goes forward, Kurdish officials worry that Mr. Hussein might use the American presence as grounds for a pre-emptive strike. Several Kurdish cities are within artillery range of the Iraqi Army.
“We have to be very careful,” a senior official said. “If there are people who want to overthrow Saddam Hussein, we do not want to be too far from them. But we do not want to provoke Saddam Hussein in any way. We know him, and we are responsible for our people, and must be very careful about what we say and do.”
The sense of uncertainty briefly deepened this week, when Turkish and Arab media reported that 50 military trucks entered Iraq at the border crossing near Zakho, ferrying American troops and equipment into village bases. Some reports said American soldiers were improving airfields in anticipation of war.
Turkish military officials and Western diplomats said the reports were false, and Kurdish officials investigated and then dismissed them as baseless. “Until now I have not seen these military trucks,” said Akher Shekh Jamal, Zakho’s mayor. “If American troops came to Kurdistan, we would see them. We would have witnesses.”
A Western expert said military activity had been limited to surveys of airfields some weeks ago by American planners near the villages of Bamarni and Harir in northern Iraq. Tours of northern villages appeared to confirm a low level of activity.
The Turkish Army has operated inside northern Iraq since the late 1990’s, under an agreement with the Kurdistan Democratic Party. The deployments are part of the army’s counterinsurgency against the Kurdish Workers Party, or P.K.K., which has engaged in a long campaign for Kurdish rights in Turkey.
With their armored vehicles, including American-made M60 tanks, Turkish soldiers were visible on Thursday near the airfield in Bamarni and at the mountaintop village of Amadiya, both roughly 15 miles south of the Turkish border.
But villagers said the Turks were part of deployments that began in 1997 and that have not recently changed in size or composition. The troops seemed lazily deployed, with few guards. Most of their tanks were idled and under tarps. Fighting positions had clearly been dug long ago.
Moreover, the dirt-and-gravel airstrip at Bamarni showed no signs of improvement. It had drainage problems, was littered in places with melon-sized stones, and in sections had shin-high shrubs.
“We haven’t seen American forces come here,” said Nori Fatah (news – web sites) Abdullah, of Bamarni, looking down from a hilltop at the Turkish tanks. “We would like it if they came, because they are good people, but they are not here yet.”
