Kurdish fighters battle to keep up moraleBy Erika Solomon in Kirkuk
Peeping through sandbags piled on to dirt berms, Kurdish fighters on the borders of oil-rich Kirkuk province watch an enemy hiding in the dry grass just a few hundred metres away, wondering how close they are to an all-out war.
“These guys have started a psychological battle. They hide out there with their faces covered just to scare us,” says Abu Bakri Ali, one of a group of fighters in camouflage cowboy hats, crouched down in the dirt watching. “They fire at us every now and then, but they’re just trying to figure what our weak spots are. They want to exploit them.”
Ever since militants led by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (known as Isis) seized swaths of territories in a lightning two-week offensive south of their autonomous region in northern Iraq, Kurdish fighters have made clear they will not be as easy a target as the Iraqi state forces that fled the onslaught.
Local channels blare patriotic tunes and seasoned “peshmerga” fighters boast the insurgents do not stand a chance against battle-hardened Kurds. But ambulances that drop off wounded fighters tell a different story.
“There’s a war starting out there – the wounded show it is true,” said one doctor last week, as fighters from the province were rushed in to his Erbil hospital on stretchers.
While the Kurdish forces are unlikely to lose a war to Isis should it choose to launch a full-scale attack, the fight could be costlier than leaders let on.
“If Isis were to attack the Kurdistan region in force, it would not be easily repelled,” says Gareth Stansfield, a researcher for the military think-tank RUSI in London. “Isis has very strong and professional fighting forces. And they have good weapons – probably better than the Kurds. So it would be difficult, and there would be significant losses.”
Isis seized US-made tanks, surface-to-air missiles and even helicopters as Iraqi forces fled their bases. They are well funded through racketeering outfits in Iraq and oil wells captured over the border in eastern Syria.
The peshmerga seized the bulk of their weapons from Saddam Hussein’s bases during the US invasion of 2003.
They may have bolstered their armoury, however, after the militant onslaught caused Iraqi forces to flee their bases in nearby areas like Kirkuk. Iraqi soldiers left behind machine guns, tanks, anti-aircraft missiles and stockpiles of bullets. Peshmerga forces say they joined in a looting spree that emptied the bases of billions in US-made equipment, even though Kurdish officials deny it.
“We got most of our arms from the Iraqi army in 2003 – and we got more from them now. The Americans gave them to the Iraq army, and now we have them,” said Burhan Said Soufi, a former commander who has been touring peshmerga front lines.
But the peshmerga are still suffering financially – disputes with the central government caused Baghdad to cut the regional Kurdistan administration’s budget this year, leaving it squeezed for funds to pay civil servants and fighters alike.
Local rank-and-file peshmerga complain they are still underarmed and underpaid, and say there are more casualties than reported in the skirmishes with Isis, with whom they share a 1,000km frontline from the northwestern to eastern borders of Iraq.
Sheer numbers and willpower point to a Kurdish victory. The Kurds have almost 200,000 fighters compared with a core Isis force of about 3,000 that relies on thousands more in sleeper cells and local militant groups.
Today’s peshmerga forces – whose name means “those who face death” – grew from mountain guerrillas who fought for decades until they gained autonomy in the 1990s, and would fight to the death to preserve it. But Mr Soufi worries the transition to standing army is incomplete.
“They are not that competent . . . In my day we fought for our nation. Today’s peshmerga fight for their livelihoods,” said Mr Soufi, who joined the peshmerga in 1981 and has been touring today’s front line.
“They’re trained 15 days a month to get their 500,000 dinars so they can pay rent and then do other monthly jobs. They are not the same as us, and it has affected their behaviour and discipline.”
Weary, impoverished fighters hardly deny it.
“I have to buy my bullets. I love my country but I don’t know what to do if there’s a real war. How would I make enough to take care of my family?” asks a tall lanky fighter, filling his car with petrol to return to the front after using a leave of absence to drive his taxi.
Of 48 peshmerga divisions, only eight are controlled by the Kurdistan regional government’s peshmerga ministry. The rest are split between the region’s dominant rival parties, the Kurdish Democratic Party and the Patriot Union of Kurdistan, which fought a bloody war after securing semi-autonomy.
“All of the heavy weapons are in the hands of the KDP and PUK forces, and even now they’re still wary of each other,” says Mr Soufi, who used to lead the PUK divisions.
Kurdish commanders say Isis is still reluctant to fight them for now. But there are signs militants may be warming up for a fight – especially in Kirkuk province, where a trail of mortar bombs has scorched the yellow fields near the front line. There has also been a fresh round of roadside bombs and suicide blasts.
Kirkuk, home to some of Iraq’s largest oilfields, has been contested by Iraq’s Kurdish and Arab populations. Unlike other territories that Kurdish forces seized during the Iraqi army’s flight, there is a minority Sunni Arab population that could co-operate with Isis.
On the Kirkuk front, fighter Karokh Manderi drives in the shadow of the berms that stretch as far as the flat horizon, using binoculars to point out Isis positions.
“If they threw a stone from there, it would reach us,” he jokes. When they see an opportunity, they attack. But we are stronger – if they had the power, they wouldn’t let us stay here a minute.”
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Kurdish peshmerga divisions
The 40 units outside Peshmerga Ministry control are evenly split between the Kurdistan region’s two biggest parties – the KDP and the PUK.
The KDP is the region’s most powerful party and its top leaders, such as KRG president Masoud Barzani, have few ties to Baghdad. They are more interested in a completely independent Kurdistan separate from Iraq.
The PUK and its leaders, by comparison, have historically been more interested in a federalist system in Iraq. Some of their top leaders, such as the current Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, have closer ties with Baghdad and many of them spent time or studied there.
Today, the KDP has fostered close ties with Turkey while the PUK has better relations with Iran.
Iraq’s three provinces that officially make up the autonomous Kurdistan region are commonly referred to as the “yellow” or “green” zones that denote the region’s division into two spheres of political control. The KDP controls the yellow zone, or the western part of the region that stretches toward the Syrian border, while the eastern part of the region is the green zone of PUK dominance, toward the Iranian border.
The KDP and PUK fought a civil war over power in the 1990s but have a power-sharing agreement today. Nonetheless, the regions remain distinctly divided and deep bitterness remains between all but the top leaders.
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