Even as the U.S. works to stabilize a postwar Iraq, Turkey is setting out to create a footprint of its own in the Kurdish areas of the country. In the days after U.S. forces
captured Saddam's powerbase in Tikrit, a dozen Turkish Special Forces troops
were dispatched south from Turkey. Their
target: the northern oil city of Kirkuk, now controlled by
the U.S. 173rd Airborne Division's 3rd Brigade. Using
the pretext of accompanying humanitarian aid the elite
soldiers passed through the northern city of Arbil on
Tuesday. They wore civilian
clothes, their vehicles lagging behind a legitimate
aid convoy. They'd hoped to pass unnoticed. But at a
checkpoint on the outskirts of Kirkuk they ran into
trouble. "We were waiting for them," says a U.S.
paratroop officer.
The Turkish Special Forces team put up no resistance
though a mean arsenal was discovered in their cars,
including a variety of AK-47s, M4s, grenades, body
armor and night vision goggles. "They did not come here with a pure
heart," says
U.S. brigade commander Col. Bill Mayville. "Their objective is to create an environment
that can be used by Turkey to send a large
peacekeeping force into Kirkuk."
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The presence of the Turkish soldiers highlights the increasing possibilities of instability in the region, which has a sizable Turkoman population that has clashed with the Kurdish majority since the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime. In the first days after Kirkuk fell to allied forces on April 10th, Turkoman families and political parties were attacked by bands
of Kurdish looters. In a dramatic display on April 11, an
enraged group of Turkoman men dumped the body of a
small boy, perhaps seven or eight years old, in front
of the Daralsalum Hotel where international
journalists had taken rooms. He'd been shot through
the waist at close range by a PK light machine gun. The
7.62mm round travelled up through his torso and exited
through his skull, leaving a hollowed shell where his
little head was supposed to be.
American commanders in the city believe the covert Turkish
team was meant to inflame these kind of tensions. "These
[Turkish] forces are tied in to Turkoman groups in the
city," says Col Mayville. The 173rd Airborne commanders suspect an amalgam of
local Turkoman parties under the banner of the Iraqi
Turkoman Front (ITF) were to be used by the covert
team to wreak havoc. "In this first convoy was real
aid. They'd do this two or three times then money or
weapons would have started flowing in. We suspect
their role was to strongarm or discipline the members
of the ITF. What they're doing is crystallizing the
ITF along the Turkish agenda," says Col. Mayville.
By Wednesday U.S. paratroopers were holding 23 people
associated with the Turkish Special Forces team. Some
were drivers and aid workers. But a dozen of them,
says Col. Mayville, were identified as soldiers. "We
held them for a night, brought them in, fed them and
watched their security. After all," he says wryly, "they are our allies." Early Thursday morning American troops
escorted the Turkish commandos back over the border.