Kurds Keep Eye on Kirkuk for Now

Beyond the deserted Iraqi army bunkers and mud-splattered pictures of Saddam Hussein, past bullet casings and the cracked gas mask of a retreating soldier, the green hills turn arid, and an oil well burns in distant Kirkuk.

The well flickers like a torch in the haze, and Bahez Abdulbaqi wants to go toward it. But he can’t -- not yet. He and tens of thousands of other Kurds exiled from Kirkuk by the Iraqi regime over the last decade want to reclaim what was taken. They must wait in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, at the edge of war, in a game of patience and politics.

The fate of Kirkuk -- Iraq’s richest oil city -- could trigger a war within a war.

The Kurds aspire to enter the town, either with militias or returning civilians. But such a move would anger Turkey, which claims a historical right to the city and wants a share of Kirkuk’s oil reserves. It could also lead to revenge killings and “ethnic cleansing” as the Arab population imported by Hussein is chased away.

The scenario is further complicated because the United States’ northern front is only beginning to take shape following Turkey’s refusal to allow American troops to cross its border with Iraq.

U.S. officials are urging Kurds not to exploit the matter by making a land grab. So far, Kurdish leaders, thrilled with their recent U.S.-led defeat of 700 Islamic guerrillas along the Iranian border, are promising to comply.

“We decided not to attack Kirkuk,” said Jalal Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which governs the eastern half of the Kurdish-controlled enclave in northern Iraq. “We don’t want to have any problem with our American friends. We don’t want to have any quarrel with our Turkish brothers.... It’s no place for chaos and revenge.”

Lightly armed Kurdish forces have filled a 12-mile vacuum left when Iraqi troops retreated last week from the outskirts of Chamchamal. The Iraqis pulled back to Qara Anjir, a town about 10 miles east of Kirkuk. The Kurdish fighters, most from the civil defense corps, have secured several oil wells and moved into guardhouses. They patrol the hills and scatter when the Iraqi army fires artillery.

“We protect this area,” said Abdulbaqi, a Kurdish rifleman. “We didn’t capture it. The Iraqis retreated. We protect the people from mines and from Iraqi bombers and spies trying to come and spoil the region.”

With a few thousand U.S. troops in northern Iraq, places such as Kirkuk are crucial to stability. American warplanes and missiles have targeted Iraqi positions across the region. A small contingent of U.S. troops is expected to seize control of the city’s 300 oil wells, which the Kurdish underground says have been booby-trapped by Hussein’s soldiers.

The U.S. wants to control Kirkuk to prevent a rekindling of hostilities between Kurds and the Turkish military. Turks fear the Iraqi Kurds will use the war to claim independence and spark unrest among Turkey’s 12 million Kurds. The Kurds have denied this, and some Kurdish fighters have threatened to attack the Turkish army if it marches too far into northern Iraq.

Kirkuk has so far been spared the heavy battles such as those unfolding to the south in Basra and Nasiriyah. Several U.S. soldiers were seen meeting Tuesday with PUK military officials in Chamchamal, and American cargo planes, including C-130s, land nightly with troops and equipment at two northern Iraq airstrips. Had Turkey granted the U.S. access to its soil, however, there would have been about 30,000 troops on the northern front by now.

Senior Kurdish officials say the smaller northern front -- which some joke about as “northern lite” -- forced the U.S. to shift its thinking on Kirkuk.

“It’s not the day for Kirkuk,” said Shalaw Askeri, a PUK Politburo member and a former mountain guerrilla. “The U.S. needs other southern cities to fall to break the will of Hussein. Kirkuk is not strategic at this point.”

But it’s essential to the Kurds. It is their Jerusalem and a key to the economy in the north. Built on 3,000-year-old ruins, Kirkuk -- where oil was discovered by the British in 1927 -- holds the richest wells in the country. In 1991, when Hussein crushed an uprising, the Kurds lost Kirkuk. More than 100,000 Kurds were deported, and the city fell under Baath Party control backed by the Republican Guard.

The resistance movement in the city has about 5,000 members, and Kurdish leaders say they hope the U.S. will use them in an invasion. More than 70 members of the underground were arrested by Iraqi security agents Monday, according to a Kurdish official.

“We are ready to cooperate with the U.S.,” said Talabani, who commands about 10,000 experienced fighters in the Kurdish-controlled region. “But for now, the U.S. has not asked us for help.”

From Jelfa’s windy hills, where the geography changes from fertile soil to bleached rock, Iraqi mortars whistle toward Kurdish fighters. The Iraqis know the targets well, having held this landscape for 12 years. When they retreated, they left behind barracks, battered villages, minefields and empty canisters of chemical decontamination powder.

“Everything is OK,” said Halmat Ghazi, a Kurdish fighter with a black Kalashnikov. “The situation is calm. Shelling is random. At night, the Americans bomb Kirkuk.”

A few days ago, Haidr Abed Ali wandered across this territory in his Iraqi military uniform. He ran away from his unit and surrendered. The Kurds say he did give himself up, but only after he was cornered. In any case, Ali -- with a nervous demeanor and the big, rough hands of a farmer -- was given a light blue shirt to hide his green uniform.

“I surrendered because I have no other solution,” he said, adding that U.S. missiles had twice exploded on the ridge not far from his bunker. “I didn’t want to kill, and I was scared for my life.”

The sun was bright across the green hills Tuesday. Red flags, marking antitank mines, dotted the ground. Some Kurdish fighters lounged in overstuffed chairs pulled from Iraqi guardhouses. Others cleaned their guns and waited for orders. A mortar exploded in the crease of a hill. There was a wisp of smoke and little excitement. A shepherd walked by wearing a looted Iraqi helmet.

Ghazi stared at a target practice dummy used by Iraqi soldiers. It was made of tin and shaped like a man. It held 21 bullet holes. They were spread out, not in a marksman’s tight circle.

“They didn’t shoot very well,” he said.