DUBAI, May 10 (AFP)  The Iraqi government has massed troops at the border with Kurdish areas ahead of a "new aggression" against the towns of Suleimaniya and Erbil, the opposition Iraqi National Congress (INC) said on Friday.
"The dictatorial regime in Baghdad has over the past three days despatched large troop contingents, backed up by tanks and heavy artillery, to areas adjacent to Iraqi Kurdistan," the INC said in a statement.

Iraqi Kurdistan is a Western-protected Kurdish enclave that was established in northern Iraq in 1991.

The statement said the troops had occupied "offensive positions" in the provinces of Erbil and Kirkuk, "ahead of a new aggression against the towns Suleimaniya and Erbil".

The latter is ruled by Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistanand the former by Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the parties who share control of the enclave.

KDP spokesman Dilshad Miran, contacted in London, played down the deployment, saying it was "a normal preventative measure due to US threats" against Iraq.