PUK/Talabani Wait In Vain For U.S.

[kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu]

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at etext.org>
Subject: PUK/Talabani Wait In Vain For U.S. Aid Against Barzani/Saddam

Iraqi Opposition Describes Mass Execution Near Irbil

By Jonathan C. Randal
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, September 2 1996; Page A20
The Washington Post

ANKARA, Turkey, Sept. 1 -- Iraqi opposition officials painted a grim
picture of retribution in northern Iraq today, involving summary
execution of their cadres and mass arrests of followers of Jalal Talabani's
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan caught in the Iraqi army's capture of Irbil on
Saturday.

Officials of the Iraqi National Congress said Iraqi troops executed 96 Iraqi
soldiers who had defected to the U.S.-financed umbrella opposition group
when they overran one of its camps south of Irbil, capital of the Kurdish
autonomous region. The group's officials also said that men of the other
major Kurdish faction, Massoud Barzani's Kurdish Democratic Party,
had captured Talabani's wife, Hero, as well as the Kurdish regional 
government's first prime minister, Fuad Mazloum, and other leading members
of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

The renewed presence in Irbil of the Iraqi secret police risked becoming
permanent even if Iraqi President Saddam Hussein were to withdraw his
troops eventually from north of the 36th parallel as he has promised, the
opposition officials said from London in a telephone interview. Such a
police presence, they said, meant that U.S. and other Western
intelligence-gathering in the areas of Iraqi Kurdistan under Barzani's
control effectively had ended. The opposition group's records, computers
and other equipment used in the effort to topple Saddam were looted, its
officials said.

In a throwback to the days before the Kurds gained control of northern Iraq
after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Iraqi secret police armed with lists of
names rounded up suspects in systematic, house-by-house searches, the
opposition sources said. The secret police were reported to have set up
headquarters in Irbil in the parliament building of the Kurdish autonomous
region, underlining Saddam's steadfast refusal to recognize the closest
thing to Kurdish self-rule in more than a generation.

Trucks loaded with loot stripped from Patriotic Union of Kurdistan houses
and offices were headed north to Kurdish Democratic Party headquarters in
the mountain town of Salahuddin, a 45-minute drive from Irbil, the
opposition officials said. The soldiers executed Saturday were monitors of
the ill-fated cease-fire between the two Kurdish groups organized by the
umbrella group. Another group of 32 monitors escaped.

----

Iraqi Troops Pull Out Of Irbil

AP Wire Report
Monday, September 2, 1996 4:44 a.m. EDT

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- U.S. troops were on high alert in the
Persian Gulf today, as word came that Saddam Hussein's troops were
withdrawing from the Kurdish city they captured in a surprise move
over the weekend.

Iraqi troops backed by tanks stormed the northern Iraqi city of
Irbil on Saturday in Saddam's largest military foray in five years.
The move prompted President Clinton to put the 20,000 American
soldiers in the region on high alert.

U.N. guards in Irbil said Iraqi tanks had cleared out of the
city by this morning, but could still be seen on its outskirts. The
city is just 12 miles inside of the southern edge of the
allied-protected Kurdish ``safe haven.''

After a Cabinet meeting in Baghdad late Sunday, the Iraqi
defense minister, Lt. Gen. Sultan Hashim Ahmed, said Saddam had
ordered him to withdraw all his troops from Irbil.

Gisper Nielsen, of the U.N. Guard Contingency in Iraq stationed
in Irbil, said Iraqi troops began withdrawing Sunday afternoon and
continued today.

``The tanks stationed outside Irbil are moving out as we
speak,'' he told The Associated Press by telephone from the
embattled city.

Saddam's forces stormed Irbil to dislodge one Kurdish group, the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and allow their rival, the Kurdistan
Democratic Party, to move in.

Nielsen said Iraqi troops who captured the city had been backed
by 50 tanks. After their withdrawal, guerrillas from the Kurdistan
Democratic Party were seen patrolling the streets of Irbil.

Another U.N. guard, who refused to give his name, said it was
not clear if the Iraqis planned to pull back entirely from the
region or just leave the city itself.

``We do not know if they are going to go or if they are going to
stay,'' the official said.

During the nearly 36-hour occupation of Irbil, Iraqi troops
conducted house-to-house searches in apparent pursuit of anti-Iraq
activists, which Baghdad claims are backed by Iran, Nielsen said.

He did not know if any arrests were made. He also could not
confirm reports by Iraqi opposition groups that scores of people
had been executed by the Iraqi army.

Nielsen said there were large numbers of casualties during the
operation but exact numbers could not be confirmed.

Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency said Iraqi forces
also captured Sulaymaniya, the area's second-largest city. The
report, which quoted ``sources close to Iraqi Kurds,'' could not be
confirmed.

On Sunday, Iraq's state-run media had warned the United States
and its Western allies not to intervene on behalf of the Kurds.

``The Iraqi people ... are ready to provide an example that will
inevitably remind the Americans of the Vietnam complex,'' the
newspaper al-Jumhouriya said.

In the wake of the fighting, the United Nations said it would
delay sending personnel to implement a deal letting Iraq sell oil
to raise $2 billion for needed food and medicine. Iraq has been
under U.N. sanctions since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Speaking from the Kurdish region, Patriotic Union leader Jalal
Talabani told ABC television Sunday that ``hundreds of people were
killed or injured'' during Saturday's 12-hour onslaught of
artillery, missiles and tank fire.

Separately, his faction claimed Sunday that Iraqi forces
``summarily executed'' 96 members of the opposition Iraqi National
Congress at a base near Irbil.

Iraq said its offensive was intended as a ``grave lesson'' to
the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and to Iran, whose troops it
claims crossed into the Kurdish area last month. Iran denies its
forces were involved.



 ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
   ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
     ++++ see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++

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