Strip of Iraq 'on the Verge of Exploding'

Tensions between Kurdish forces, above, and Iraq's army have stoked fear just as years of Shiite-Sunni violence wane. (By Andrea Bruce -- The Washington Post)
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"We are now subject to two occupations -- one by the Americans and one by the Kurds," said Nuaimi, who claimed the area is 85 to 90 percent Arab, although Kurds estimate the figure is closer to 50 or 60 percent. "The Kurdish one is much worse by far and is driving the people to become terrorists. This area is now on the verge of exploding."

With prodding from angry Arabs such as Nuaimi, the Iraqi army last month ordered the pesh merga's 34th Brigade to withdraw within 24 hours from Jalawla and the surrounding area.

The Kurds initially refused. Kurdish officials said they killed only insurgents and were in the area to protect civilians, not occupy territory. But after high-level political negotiations, the 4,000-member brigade pulled back to the mainly Kurdish city of Khanaqin, about 16 miles south of the Kurdish border. Two weeks later, a suicide bomber targeting Arab police recruits in Jalawla killed at least 28 people, an attack the Kurds blamed on Sunni insurgents, and Arabs blamed on Kurds.

Last week, Kurdish officials also agreed to withdraw the pesh merga from Khanaqin as long as the Iraqi army agreed not to enter.

"We cannot stand by with crossed hands and do nothing in the disputed areas while Kurds are being killed," said Jafar Mustafa Ali, the Kurdish regional government's minister of state for pesh merga affairs. "We will step in as soon as the Iraqi government leaves."

Khanaqin's mayor, Mohammed Mullah Hassan, said the city would remain under Kurdish control even if the troops all departed. "We are all pesh merga now," he said.

In Khanaqin, almost all the street signs and conversation are in Kurdish. Government buildings display the Kurdish flag instead of the Iraqi one and the picture of Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdish regional government, instead of Maliki. Some Arabs have been required to obtain Kurdish-issued identification cards to enter the city.

"We are not trying to control the area -- we are already controlling the area," said Fuad Hussein, Barzani's chief of staff. "There is a reality on the ground now in disputed areas across Iraq that can't be ignored."

Hussein accused Maliki of trying to seize land that belongs to Kurds. "We have the feeling that there is a hidden agenda here," he said. "They want to drive us from the area. Some of them want to drive the Kurds out of all of Iraq."

Kurdish leaders have agreed to remove pesh merga forces from areas such as Jalawla and Khanaqin to prevent any erosion of their control over a Maryland-size swath of land that makes up about 7 percent of Iraq's territory.

Kurds and Arabs across that area say it is under the authority of Kurds, even in those places without a large pesh merga presence. Even though the ultimate fate of Kirkuk is uncertain, both sides acknowledge that it is run by the Kurds: The governor is a Kurd, the majority of the provincial council is Kurdish, the military leaders of the Iraqi army units in the area are Kurdish, and the secretive Asayesh is said by both sides to have the best intelligence in town.

Many Arabs and Kurds in these areas begin conversations with recitations of their respective narratives of suffering and oppression. For the Kurds, the central villain in their recent history is Saddam Hussein, whose "Arabization" campaign drove tens of thousands of Kurds from their homelands and replaced them with Arabs. Iraqi Arabs in those areas now accuse the Kurds of employing similar tactics.