Turkish troops attack Kurdish rebels in Turkey, Iraq

Thomas Seibert

$(document).ready(function() {$.get('/national/overrides/ajax/article_detail_date.jsp', {'vcmid':'5f6629e210223310VgnVCM100000e56411acRCRD'}, function(data) { $("#article_date").html(data);});});

ISTANBUL // About 10,000 Turkish troops attacked Kurdish rebels in south-east Turkey and Iraq yesterday in their biggest offensive in three years. The assault by 22 battalions of commandos and special forces is retaliation for Kurdish rebel raids in Hakkari province near the Iraq border on Wednesday, in which 24 Turkish soldiers died and 18 were wounded.

Military chiefs said yesterday the troops, supported by fighter jets, helicopter gunships and surveillance drones, had orders to "find and eliminate" members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), who use northern Iraq as a launch pad for attacks inside Turkey.

After Wednesday's deadly coordinated raids, troops in helicopters pursued the rebels over the border while artillery and fighter jets pounded suspected PKK camps in Iraq, but only yesterday did the scale of the operation became clear.

It was not known whether Turkey consulted authorities in Iraq before their troops crossed the border. The PKK has been making use of the absence of a strong authority in northern Iraq for years and has launched its attacks against Turkey from its headquarters in the Kandil Mountains, 100 kilometres south of the Turkish border.

Necirvan Barzani, a high-ranking official from the Kurdish-administered region of northern Iraq, held talks in Ankara yesterday with Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister. Mr Barzani said Iraq's Kurds shared Turkey's grief about the latest PKK attack and announced that Mesut Barzani, his uncle and president of the Kurdish region of Iraq, would visit Ankara soon for talks about co-operating against the PKK.

Mr Davutoglu told Iraq's vice president Tariq Al Hashimi on Wednesday that Turkey expected more help from Iraq on the PKK issue.

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of the UAE, Dr Anwar Mohammed Gergash condemned the terrorist attacks by the Kurds.  
"The UAE condemns these terrorist acts, reiterates its full solidarity with the Turkish government against extremism and terrorism, offers condolences to the families of the victims and expresses best wishes of speedy recovery for the wounded," the minister said.

As Ankara started to look into possible foreign involvement in the PKK raid in Hakkari, speculation centred on Syria. "Evidence will hopefully appear after an investigation," a government source in Ankara told The National yesterday in response to a question about a possible interference of another country. The government of Bashar Al Assad, the Syrian president, warned Ankara this month not to recognise a Syrian opposition group that was established in Turkey. Iran, another neighbour, said the Turkish government should stop promoting its secular Muslim state and market economy as a model for Arab Spring countries and should reconsider its decision to have a part of Nato's missile shield on its soil..

Ignoring the warning by the Syrian government, this week Mr Davutoglu met representatives of the opposition Syrian National Council.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, said on Wednesday the raid in Hakkari and other recent PKK attacks had "clearly shown that the terrorist organisation is someone's tool". The PKK was acting as the "subcontractor of some quarters", he said.

Cengiz Candar, a columnist, wrote in yesterday's Radikal newspaper: "Without naming names, Tayyip Erdogan has pointed to Syria and Iran."

Nihat Ali Ozcan, a PKK expert in Ankara, said it would not be a surprise if it turned out that Turkey's neighbours had cooperated with the Kurdish rebels.

"For 30 years, the PKK has always found new sponsors despite all the changes in the region," said Mr Ozcan, an analyst at the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey, a think tank in Ankara.

Relations between Turkey and Syria have soured over the violent suppression of a popular uprising by the government in Damascus. Mr Erdogan has said publicly that he felt betrayed by Mr Al Assad and has been preparing a set of sanctions against Turkey's southern neighbour.

Turkish observers pointed out that the PKK was not fighting against the Syrian regime although Kurds had much less freedom in Syria than they had in Turkey, and there were many Syrian nationals in the rebels' ranks.

"It is quite telling that PKK says nothing against the Syrian regime, which suppresses Kurds in ways incomparable to Turkey," Mustafa Akyol, a newspaper columnist and book author, said in a message on Twitter.

Syria gave shelter to the PKK leadership in the 1990s and expelled the rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan from Damascus only under extensive Turkish pressure in 1998.

Ocalan was captured by Turkish agents shortly afterwards. He is serving a life sentence in a Turkish prison. Officials in Ankara underlined yesterday that there was no evidence linking Syria to the latest PKK raid.

tseibert@thenational.ae

5f6629e210223310VgnVCM100000e56411acRCRD

About 10,000 Turkish troops attack Kurdish rebels in south-east Turkey and Iraq in retaliation for Kurdish rebel raids near the Iraq border in which 24 Turkish soldiers died and 18 were wounded.

$.get('/national/jsp/community/national_article_the_most.jsp', {'section':'News'}, function(data) { $("#national_mostNews").html(data);});

View the original article here

Elite Pakistani troops move into Taliban mountain stronghold

Tom Hussain

ISLAMABAD // Elite Pakistani troops have launched a major counterterrorism operation in the Kurram tribal region, attempting to lift a three-year Taliban siege and tightening the noose around the insurgents' leadership.

The military's spokesman, General Athar Abbas, said in a brief written statement issued on Monday: "The operation has been launched with the aim of clearing the area of the terrorists involved in the kidnapping and killing of local people, suicide attacks on security installations and forces, and blocking the road connecting lower and upper Kurram."

The operation was launched on Sunday in response to demands made by local tribal leaders, he said.

Militant sources based in the federally administered tribal areas, or Fata, said the operation was being led a secretive counterterrorism brigade-strength unit of the Pakistani army. Brigades range from 1,500 to 5,000 soldiers in strength.

The sources said the brigade, believed to be based near Peshawar, has only once before been deployed, against the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) stronghold of Matta in Swat.

The TTP briefly seized Swat, a valley of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, in early 2009.

The brigade receives specialist training in "shock and awe" tactics and has a take-no-prisoners policy, said the militants, who asked not to be named.

Residents told Pakistani newspapers that "thousands" of soldiers had swarmed into the mountainous Dombaki, Gowaki, Manato and Zaimukhet areas of Kurram, with support from army helicopter gunships and air force jets.

They said soldiers had faced no resistance as they re-established state control over government buildings, hoisting Pakistan's flag over schools and healthcare clinics previously occupied by TTP militants.

Air power could be heard pounding militant strongholds in the adjacent Koh-i-Safaid mountain range, the residents said.

About 28,000 people had already left the area, said Sahibzada Anis, a spokesman for the Fata disaster management authority, sparking fears authorities and charities might struggle to cope with the sudden surge of refugees.

More than 450 families were seeking shelter in camps or school buildings, while the majority of the displaced people had gone to their relatives living in different places, he said.

Residents said most of the militants had fled the area ahead of the operation, however, escaping to the neighbouring Orakzai and Khyber tribal regions.

Military officers based in Pakistan's Fata said the TTP chose to retreat after a failed attempt to negotiate with the military through interlocutors of the Haqqani Network, the leading militant faction in eastern Afghanistan.

"They can feel the noose tightening around their neck," said an officer based in Miranshah, the main town of the North Waziristan region.

Last Updated:Dec 26, 2010

No one can question that the perpetrators of attacks on civilians are a threat to Pakistan, and traitors to the religion they claim to profess.

National Editorial

The network has its headquarters in the neighbouring North Waziristan region and also maintains a large presence in South Waziristan. It is frequently targeted by US drones, but has not fought Pakistani security forces since a controversial peace accord with the government in September 2006. Critics of the peace deal allege the network frequently liaises with other militant factions, including Al Qaeda, and the Pakistani military to maintain peace in the Fata, where possible. In return, it is allowed to freely move to and from Afghanistan, critics say.

The network helped negotiate a peace agreement in January between Kurram's rival Sunni and Shiite tribesmen, who had been at sectarian war since 2007.

Amid growing US pressure for Pakistan to launch a counterterrorism operation in North Waziristan, the network attempted to secure a new headquarters in Kurram in return for their peacemaking efforts.

However, its attempts failed because Shia Toori tribal elders refused to allow its fighters safe passage through the Parachinar area, a move that would have gained the network access to mountain passes into the neighbouring Afghan province of Nangarhar.

The officers said the TTP chief, Hakimullah Mehsud, sent a three-man delegation from his South Waziristan base to the Kurram town of Sadda on June 20 to meet Haqqani Network representatives, asking them to secure a postponement of the forthcoming operation with military officers.

The Haqqani representatives took the request to a senior army commander, and then conveyed his refusal to the TTP delegation, they said. Next page

f6c6440c7baf0310VgnVCM100000e56411acRCRD

Thousands of soldiers have swarmed into the mountainous Kurram tribal region, attempting to lift a three-year Taliban siege with support from army helicopter gunships and air force jets.

$.get('/national/jsp/community/national_article_the_most.jsp', {'section':'News'}, function(data) { $("#national_mostNews").html(data);});

View the original article here