BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A Kurdish army brigade from northern Iraq is undergoing intensive urban combat training for deployment to Baghdad, where it expects to take on the Mahdi Army Shiite militia, its commander said Saturday.In the northern city of Irbil, Brig. Gen. Nazir Assem Korran, commander of the 1st Infantry Brigade, 2nd Division of the Iraqi army, said ``we will head to Baghdad soon. We have 3,000 soldiers who are currently undergoing intensive training especially in urban combat and how the army should act inside a city.''
Korran told the AP he did not know how the operation would unfold but said the Defense Ministry had asked his brigade to take part in the security operation along with thousands of other Iraqi and U.S. troops. The forces were to conduct neighborhood-to-neighborhood searches to clear the city of Sunni Muslim insurgents and local militias such as the Mahdi Army of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who has been an ally of al-Maliki.
``We are going to confront any terrorist elements or militias. We will confront any outlaws,'' the general said. He did not name the Mahdi Army, but the Shiite militia is blamed for much of the capital's sectarian killing and is the only true militia presence in Baghdad.
Korran, the general in Irbil, said his troops would face a language barrier and rely on translators because 95 percent of the brigade is Kurdish and unable to speak Arabic. Kurds, a separate ethnic group, are largely Sunnis but not Arabs.
His brigade is one of two coming from the Kurdish region. The other will arrive from the northern city of Sulaimaniyah. Another brigade will come from southern Iraq. ``We do not represent any sect or ethnic group,'' Korran said, adding that he expect to be fighting against ``militias in residential areas.''