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| Iraq |
| The Turks Enter Iraq: A Turkish Special Forces team is caught by U.S. troops in Kurdistan |
| 2003-04-24 |
| 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 Turks seem hellbent on compounding their errors. 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. We have many sources of leverage over Turkey (Kurds, cash, EU, etc.) but if they force us to use them they'll only spiral further out of control. 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. Hopefully the Kurds will play this smart while we work the Turks, otherwise it's only going to get uglier from here. |
| Posted by:JAB |
| #4 Being out of uniform makes them spies,and in time of war Spies(soldiers out of uniform )can be shot. |
| Posted by: raptor 2003-04-25 08:55:49 |
| #3 Oh well, that's what you get when you have a military above constitutional control. |
| Posted by: Hiryu 2003-04-25 07:31:32 |
| #2 "Allies" hell! Send every last one of them to Gitmo until the Turks explain themselves. |
| Posted by: Tom 2003-04-24 21:43:38 |
| #1 C'mon, Murat! Where are you, buddy? I gotta hear your side. Take a swing, big guy! |
| Posted by: Dar 2003-04-24 19:35:36 |