Kurdish-Iraqi Soldiers Deserting
Many troops want to avoid sectarian strife
in Baghdad
Saturday, January
20, 2007
By Leila Fadel and Yaseen Taha, McClatchy
Newspapers
SULAIMANI, (Southern Kurdistan) -- As the
Iraqi government attempts to secure a capital city ravaged by conflict between
Sunni and Shiite Muslim Arabs, its decision to bring a third party into the
mix may cause more problems than peace.
Kurdish soldiers from northern Iraq, who are
mostly Sunnis but not Arabs, are deserting the army to avoid the civil war in
Baghdad, a conflict they consider someone else's problem.
The Iraqi army brigades being sent to the
capital are filled with former members of a Kurdish militia, the peshmerga,
and most of the soldiers remain loyal to the militia.
Much as Shiite militias have infiltrated the
Iraqi security forces across Arab Iraq, the peshmerga fill the ranks of the
Iraqi army in the Kurdish region in the north, poised to secure a
semi-independent Kurdistan and seize oil-rich Kirkuk and parts of Mosul if
Iraq falls apart. One thing they didn't bank on, they said, was being sent
into the "fire" of Baghdad.
"The soldiers don't know the Arabic language,
the Arab tradition, and they don't have any experience fighting terror," said
Anwar Dolani, a former peshmerga commander who leads the brigade that is being
transferred to Baghdad from the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah.
Mr. Dolani called the desertions a
"phenomenon," but refused to say how many soldiers have left the army. "I
can't deny that a number of soldiers have deserted the army, and it might
increase due to the ferocious military operations in Baghdad," he said.
"This is the biggest performance through
which we can test them," said Lt. Gen. Ali Ghaidan, commander of land forces
for the Iraqi Defense Ministry. The Kurdish soldiers will be using
translators, and they will start off doing less dangerous tasks, such as
manning checkpoints with Arab soldiers, he said.
In interviews, however, soldiers in
Sulaimaniyah expressed loyalty to their Kurdish brethren, not to Iraq. Many
said they had already deserted, and those who are going to Baghdad said they
would flee if the situation there became too difficult.
"I joined the army to be a soldier in my
homeland, among my people. Not to fight for others who I have nothing to do
with," said Ameen Kareem, 38, who took a week's leave with other soldiers from
his brigade in Irbil and never returned. "I used to fight in the mountains and
valleys, not in the streets."
Mr. Kareem said he knew that deserting was
risky, but that he would rather be behind bars in Kurdistan than a "soldier in
Baghdad's fire." Without the language and with his Kurdish features, he was
sure that he would stand out, he said. He's a Kurd, he said, and he has no
reason to become a target in an Arab war.
Now, he drives a taxi in Sulaimaniyah, eking
out a living and praying that he doesn't get caught.Those who are planning to
go to Baghdad said they didn't want to be considered cowards.
Mohammed Abdoul, 41, reluctantly prepared to
leave for the Iraqi capital earlier this week. Fear clouded his mind. "I don't
know why we should interfere in this Sunni-Shiite war," he said. "If I am
going to face a difficult task in Baghdad and feel sectarian tension, I will
leave the army forever, come back to Sulaimaniyah and work in the market."
