Saturday, November 13, 2004
Gee, Who Could Have Seen This One Coming?
The use of a predominantly Kurdish proxy army has, pedictably, exacerbated the conflict raging across Iraq's ethnic fault lines. In Mosul, Iraq's third largest city, insurgents attacked the PUK party headquarters; here's the AP:
The AP explicitly cited the Kurds cooperation with US forces as possibly "inflam[ing] ethnic rivalries" in Iraq :
The most serious incidents took place in Mosul, a city of about 1 million people, where fighting raged for a second day. Gunmen attacked the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party in an hourlong battle that a party official said left six assailants dead.
The AP explicitly cited the Kurds cooperation with US forces as possibly "inflam[ing] ethnic rivalries" in Iraq :
In addition to firing the Mosul police chief, Iraqi authorities also dispatched four battalions of the Iraqi National Guard from garrisons along the Syrian and Iranian borders. Most of the reinforcements are ethnic Kurds who fought alongside American forces during the 2003 invasion a move which could inflame ethnic rivalries with Mosul's Sunni Arab population. Nevertheless, it appeared Iraqi authorities had no choice given the apparent failure of the city's police force to maintain order.
