troung

By Jim Muir
BBC News, Baghdad

Iraq's new president has said the insurgency could be ended immediately if the authorities made use of Kurdish, Shia Muslim and other militias.

Jalal Talabani said this would be more effective than waiting for Iraqi forces to take over from the US-led coalition.

Mr Talabani, a Kurd, also told the BBC he would not sign a death warrant for captured former leader Saddam Hussein.

And he warned that any attempt to impose an Islamic government on Iraq would break up the country.

He said the Shia religious parties with whom the Kurds have struck a partnership to underpin the new government have agreed to a compromise whereby Islam will be one of several sources for Iraqi law.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4454985.stm


Ok so no death penatly for Saddam and ethinic militias to put down an ethnic war...

I don't like the big time militia idea too many things could go wrong.... don't get me wrong I want the guerillas taken out but this could cause a lot of trouble,,,

Ray

Who are the most militant of the Islamic militants?

The Sunnis and their AQ affiliates.

Pesh Margas and Shias vs Sunnis and AQ Worldwide Inc.

Result: Civil War and catastrophe.

The new found power seems to have gone to the head of this Talebani bloke and he is dreaming that he is a new born Caliph!

What is Islam being "one of the several sources" of Iraqi Law?

Have the confusion of the Pakistani type thereafter as was seen in the Muqtarma Mai case?

troung

This sounds creepily similar to Najibullah in Afghanistan making up for weakness in his army fighting the Mujahideen and thus making ethnic militias. We have all seen how that one worked. There are already fears about a politicized army in Iraq and giving ethnic groups weapons and training could get one into private ethnic armies.

Kurds, Turkomens, Sunnis and Shiites all thus arming. Little oversight on the militias and they could then become the law onto themselves and local leaders would be pushing men away from joining the army and into joining local militias.

It could in thoery get bad, it could not I can't read the future.

Confed999

They should join the military or police.

__________________
No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

troung

I agree.

This sounds fishy. Kind of like these militias could get used for other reasons rather then fighting the guerillas.

The warlordism in Afghanistan got big in the same way. The military was unable to control the countyside so they formed ethnic militias to free up the army. Dostum formed a 60,000 man "militia" (with tanks, IFVs, artillery and fighter bombers) that was more or less outside government control then he turned sides and marched on the capital.

Granted I doubt anything that extreme would happen. Yet the Kurds have a pretty big militia already and they don't want to disarm it so this would be fig leafing them. Sadr has a militia or sorts and of course there is the Badr (4get the name) Brigade in Iran which is probably the best armed. We might want to take a hacksaw to these outfits rather then fig leafing them all.

If the army is undermanned they might as well take the militia volunteers and put them into the army but that would undercut political power or so it seems. Smells too much like sides arming for a civil war then trying to put down one...

And thats leaving out issues of oversight (who calls the shots), possible abuses and worse...

Ray

Joining the unifromed lot, will hamper some freewheeling that their bosses may like.

troung

Thats true plus if things get worse it would be a lot easier send say a Kurdish militia into action rather then trying to get Kurdish soldiers to desert their units to come home with their weapons then go out to shoot up Sunnis or Turkomens.

Having an on call milita outside of official government contol (though controlled by members of the government) makes things so much "easier" if the ethnic troubles get worse. This could become a power issue and could make things worse.

Confed999

Is Iraq's military segregated?

troung

There have been attmepts to the otherwise (read those articles I had posted about the CT units) and at one point I remember hearing about attempts to mix it down to the squad (like chain gangs ), but I would not be suprised if some units had one group in bigger numbers then others. But it is mixed enough to make leaders want seperate ethnic militias.

Confed999

That's what I thought. This makes me more against ethnic militias being used for anything other than specific cases of hometown defence. Those in the military will rapidly learn that religion/race is largely unimportant in battle, and will begin to rely on each other. They'll mention it to their friends, they'll teach it to their children. It seems this must be about the power of the ethnic leaders.

troung

I know for sure the elite units are mixed and more then likely the regular units have enough of a mix (although sunnis are in low numbers to their percent of the population) to it seems make some want ethnic militias with the youngmen joining those rather then the army. Fig leafing the Kurd militia for example will give them a powerbloc of sorts outside the normal chain of command. The Kurds have a militia which is supposed to actually be disbanded, this would prevent it. And if the Kurds decide to leave Iraq after we leave that kind of gives them a force to allow it to happen. The Kurdish militas started to kick Sunnis out of the north after we took power and before the guerilla war really got hot.

And that's leaving out that local leaders would more then likely convince men to join the militias and not the army weaking the army more. Kind of the Lebanon type local militias fighting for control of cities could happen.

The same type of thing ruined Afghanistan as a nation but has given small numbers of men (the leaders and those who bankroll the groups) bigtime power within the borders. But Afghani warlords made the mistake and forget that warlords are not actually supposed to use their armies in battle .

I guess I am just so liberal that the only reason I could see segerated units within a nation is because of languege barriers...

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And right now we are only focusing on power struggles and not abuse, murder, rape and all those other lovely things militias can do only answering to the guys bankrolling them...

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From 2004

U.S. struggles with Kurdish militias as residents flee North

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Friday, May 7, 2004
BAGHDAD – The U.S. military has been confronted with difficulties in absorbing Kurdish militias into the new Iraqi army and security forces.

U.S. officials said Kurdish organizations have offered their combatants for deployment in the newly-trained Iraqi forces. But they said the Kurdish fighters have proven resistant to induction and training.

"We don't really have a big problem incorporating them into an Iraqi Security Force construct," Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, commander of Task Force Olympia, said. "It is finding the right role for them to play in the future of Iraq."

Ham was referring to the Peshmurga militia, which fought the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein during the 2003 war. He said negotiations were taking place for both individual combatants and entire units of the Peshmurga, Middle East Newsline reported.

"We are looking for ways to increasingly incorporate Peshmurga forces into legitimate Iraqi Security Force structure, whether this be taking former Peshmurga units and forming them under the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps or whether this is individual members, former members of the Peshmurga serving in the Iraqi Armed Forces or in another security force construct," Ham said. "It is clear that that is the role ahead for their former Peshmurga forces is with Iraqi Security Force operations."

On Friday, thousands of Kurds were said to have fled Faluja for northern Iraq amid threats from and attacks on Kurds by pro-Saddam forces and Al Qaida. The Washington Times reported from Iraq that Kurdish residents of Faluja have been accused of supporting the U.S.-led coalition.

Ham said the United States does not conduct patrols with Peshmurga. But the U.S. military conducts patrols with ICDC units that were formerly Kurdish militia groups.

"I wouldn't say that the former Peshmurga pose a threat to Iraq," Ham said. "It is just that having militias that are outside of a federal architecture is inconsistent with the federalist nature that Iraq is developing toward. So if there are going to be military forces, security forces in a country, they have to be part of an authorized and approved and structured organization, not separate entities with loyalties to something other than the federal government."

The ICDC battalion in Faluja was regarded as the most effective Iraqi fighting force. Officials said many of the members of the 36th Battalion were former Kurdish Peshmerga fighters.

"There are no Peshmerga militia operating under Iraqi or coalition command and control," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy coalition operations director, said. "There are many former members of the militia that have joined the Iraqi armed forces, the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, who now answer to the coalition, answer to the Iraqi security forces who have their allegiance to the people of Iraq. But there are no Peshmerga militias that are under our control, nor are we – are they operating under any direction from the coalition."

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They want to keep them intact and under their own command....

troung

Though battle-hardened, Iraq's Kurdish militia struggles for role
Posted 3/1/2005 6:38 PM
By Annia Ciezadlo, The Christian Science Monitor

SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq — As Iraq's fledgling security forces prepare to take over the country's defense, a crucial question is emerging: what will happen to Iraq's 80,000 or so pesh merga, the battle- hardened Kurdish militia?

Under an agreement hammered out last June, the pesh merga — meaning "those who face death" — and other militias are supposed to be disbanded and absorbed into Iraq's various security forces. But in turbulent northern Iraqi towns like Mosul, Kirkuk, and Tal Afar, the legendary mountain warriors have continued to fight — not as members of the Iraqi Army or national guard, but as pesh merga under the command of Kurdish political parties.

"Officially, there is no pesh merga, only the Iraqi Army," says Fareed Asasard, director of the Kurdistan Strategic Studies Center. "But still, you can see that the pesh merga remain. Maybe in some countries they have succeeded in changing militias into an army, but here, we continue to have pesh merga."

The pesh merga's role in defending key cities like Mosul, and the growing influence of Iraq's Kurdish minority, have revived the delicate question of how — and where — to use the storied guerrillas. In recent battles, they proved to be an invaluable counterinsurgency force, capturing many insurgents and defending strategic locations. But whether they remain in Kurdistan, or deploy throughout Iraq, their future promises to be a politically explosive issue that could heighten ethnic tensions.

Iraq has two main Kurdish parties: the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK, and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, or KDP. Since 1991, each party has controlled an area of northern Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region. The two parties fought a four-year civil war in the mid-1990s, during which the KDP invited Saddam Hussein's troops into the region to drive back PUK forces. The two parties have agreed to unify the Kurdish region under a single government, but each maintains its own band of armed pesh merga with separate command structures.

A key question is whether the pesh merga will have to disband, under the June agreement. If they don't, that could cause tensions with other forces like the Shiite Badr Brigade, the private army of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

But some Kurdish officials have maintained that the agreement does not apply to them. With Iraq's two main Kurdish parties gaining clout, it's increasingly likely that the Kurdish parties will want to keep some of their pesh merga intact.

The question is where. One option is to keep the pesh merga where they have always been: strictly to defend Kurdistan. But as the Kurds gain stature within Iraq, the Turkish government is cranking up its alarms against Kurdish independence. A powerful autonomous region on Turkey's borders, with its own fighting force, would be hard for Ankara to stomach.

Another option is to disperse the pesh merga commanders throughout Iraq's Army. That way, the Iraqi Army gains a trained and loyal fighting force, skilled in counterinsurgency and guerrilla tactics. Not all of Iraq's pesh merga are well-trained. But those who attended the Qala Cholan officer school, founded after the 1991 Kurdish uprising against Saddam Hussein, form an experienced officer corps that Iraq's beleaguered forces need.

"From the very beginning of forming the New Iraqi Army, they have had problems building these new units," says Kosrat Rasul, a pesh merga commander who is now a top PUK leader. "The Americans should bring the Iraqi leaders and put them in the forefront, put more Iraqi commanders in charge of the forces."

But putting Kurdish officers in charge, no matter how experienced, could also increase ethnic friction. "What worries me are the consequences within Iraq," says an Iraqi political analyst who is close to the Kurdish leadership. "I think it's in the interests of Iraq to integrate the pesh merga into the Iraqi Army. But the ... way it's being done, with the Kurds in the forefront, is dangerous."

In interview after interview, Kurdish leaders declare their eagerness to keep fighting — not just in Kurdistan, but throughout Iraq. "The pesh merga is not a militia, it's a legitimate fighting force," says Dana Ahmed Majid, head of security for the PUK, hammering his fist in the air for emphasis. "How can the terrorists be able to operate throughout Iraq, and we, as Iraqis, not have the right to defend all of Iraq?"

Pesh merga commanders say that they are waiting for the central Iraqi government to ask them, publicly and unequivocally, to fight outside Kurdistan. "If the Americans and the Iraqi government ask us to deploy pesh merga, we are ready to do that," says Gen. Mustapha Said Qadir, the PUK's top pesh merga commander. "We are ready to deploy them even in Baghdad."

Others caution that the militia will not be as effective outside its own turf. Mosul is not within the Kurdish region, but it is almost half Kurdish, and even Kurds who don't live there know the city well. "Don't think that because the pesh merga succeeded in Mosul, they know Anbar," says Asasard. "I don't think they would be successful in Fallujah or Ramadi. Personally, I have never seen Samarra or Ramadi or Fallujah — but I have seen Mosul."

Some leaders think the best solution would be to use pesh merga only in Baghdad, a heterogeneous city of 5 million, about 20% of whom are Kurdish. "We are part of the government that rules in Baghdad, and it's the focal point of the economy, so the pesh merga should take part in defending it," says Rasul. "But in other provinces, they should provide their own security."

An embarrassing incident last December underscored the difficulty of using pesh merga outside Kurdistan. Many Iraqi politicians, both Arab and Kurdish, use the fiercely loyal fighters for their personal security details. At Baghdad International Airport, a lunchtime argument turned into a full-blown melee after Arab and Kurdish guards for several top politicians started hurling ethnic slurs at each other.

The pesh merga's successes in Mosul and Tal Afar have only increased Arab resentment. "The Arabs are just recruits brought hastily — they flee because they do not believe in what they are doing," says the Arab analyst, who asked not to be named. "So the perception that the Arabs are getting — and not just Sunni Arabs — is that it's not an Iraqi Army fighting terrorists, but Kurds fighting against Arabs."