In Iraq's north, fears that disorder could spur ethnic strife

The night Kirkuk fell, a man named Natham Arif died. He was an ethnic Turkmen.

The Iraqi Turkmen Front, a political group representing Iraq's third-largest ethnicity, says Mr. Arif was one of at least seven Turkmen killed by Kurds, who took control of the city last week. The group says the deaths and lootings that followed Kirkuk's fall are evidence that Kurds are targeting the city's vulnerable Turkmens in the wake of the Iraqi regime's disintegration.

"If the situation will be like this, it will develop into a battle between us and the Kurds. We've decided to resist anyone who will try to hurt us," says Mustafa Kemal Yaycili, chairman of the Turkmen Front, who recently returned from London where he had been living in exile.

Stories and statements like these are potentially explosive in Iraq's volatile north. Neighboring Turkey has longed viewed a Kurdish seizure of Kirkuk as a threat. The city's rich oil fields might make the concept of an independent Kurdistan economically viable and spur separatist demands by Turkey's own large Kurdish population. Now Turkey is also concerned about the well-being of Iraq's Turkmens, with whom Turks share ethnic, historical, and linguistic ties.

But residents here have seen little if any of this alleged ethnic violence, and some here are worried that outsiders may be trying to stir up resentment among northern Iraq's different ethnic groups.

While most newspapers around the world recorded a day of joy exhibited by citizens when Kirkuk fell Thursday, many of Turkey's newspapers reported a day of tragedy. According to front-page stories, Kurds looted and burned government offices containing land and property deeds in a deliberate attempt to erase evidence of Turkmen ownership in the city. At least 20 Turkmen were reported to have been killed.

Against this backdrop, Turkey threatened to send in troops to northern Iraq Thursday after Kurdish pesh merga fighters flooded into the city; the BBC aired what it said was secretly filmed footage of Turkish troops amassed at the border.

But Secretary of State Colin Powell promptly stepped in with a compromise solution, leading to the withdrawal of Kurdish forces over the weekend in exchange for Turkey sending 15 observers into the north.

Some semblance of order had returned to Kirkuk Sunday following looting that gutted government offices, as well as telephone, water, and electrical utilities. The crime spree has also targeted stores, homes, and cars.

By the time US soldiers began patrolling the downtown area Saturday night, Arif's sand and gravel business was looted, and some 40 cars in their neighborhood were stolen.

A car was all the gunmen were after when they came to Arif's house at around 1 a.m. Friday. Arif's widow doesn't believe they were targeted because he was a Turkmen. She was there, and she happens to be a Kurd.

"They banged on the door. I asked who it was and they said, 'Your friends,' " recalls Sonya Mohammed Saleh, who sat in tears Sunday, surrounded by mourners at the Arif family home. She went to the window and saw four men in a Volkswagen. "We want to talk to you," they said. The gunmen, she says, hoped to get her husband to open the door to their relatively large gated home so they could steal the car.

Page: 1 | 2 | 3