Kurdish rebels threaten suicide attacks against US

[Barrett808]

Source: Associated Press

Kurdish rebels threaten suicide attacks against US
By YAHYA BARZANJI, Associated Press Writer

QANDIL MOUNTAINS, Iraq - Kurdish rebels could launch suicide attacks against American interests to punish the U.S. for sharing intelligence with Turkey after Turkey bombed rebel bases, a spokeswoman for a wing of a rebel group warned.

Turkey's military said more than 150 Kurdish rebels were killed in Friday's air strikes against bases of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, on Mount Qandil on the border of Iran and Iraq. Peritan Derseem, a senior official of the rebel group's Iranian wing, PEJAK, claimed that only six people were killed in latest Turkish strikes.

The PKK fights for autonomy in Turkey's southeast and also has a wing fighting for Kurdish rights in Iran.

Derseem blamed the United States for helping Turkey in an interview late Sunday.

She said some rebels want to join suicide squads to avenge the deaths of their comrades but that "combatants are under the control of the organization," which she said is against such attacks. That may change, Derseem hinted.

"We have changed our stand toward the United States government and we are standing against them now," she said. "Maybe some day ... individual combatants might launch suicide attacks inside Iraq and Turkey, and even against American interests."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080505/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_kurdish_rebels

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It took Bush to turn our Kurdish allies into suicide bombers.

[Solly Mack]

1. hearts and minds....hearts and minds

[atreides1]

2. When did this happen

I wasn't aware of an alliance between the US and the PKK, when did this happen?

As for the Kurds, I was under the impression that they were part of the current Iraqi government?

I would appreciate any information that you could provide to official recognition of the PKK as US allies.

Thanks!

[Tempest]

5. There is no alliance between the U.S. and the PKK per say

However, the U.S. has been a big supporter of the Kurds (although not always in constructive ways), and the Kurds funnel U.S. money to the PKK.

[14thColony]

7. This is a common mistake

"Kurds" are about as homogenous a group as "Caucasians" are. Iraqi Kurds (KDP and PUK) are allies of the US (sometimes not to their benefit), and have been since more-or-less 1991. The KDP and PUK have fought each other, fought Saddam, allied with Saddam to fight each other, and even allied with Turkey to fight the PKK.

The Turkish Kurds who make up the PKK are not allies of the US, are enemies of Republic of Turkey, and are generally ignored by the Iraqi Kurds who really mostly wish they'd just go back to Turkey and get the hell out of Iraq. Which of course they can't do. Being generally non-religious and more nationalist, they've historically held fairly positive views of the US, since we too engaged in revolutionary struggle to rid ourselves or an oppressive imperialist power (they're Marxists, so they like that sort of imagery). But of course now they don't like us because we're helping the Turks hurt them. But then again they're not exactly choir girls and boys (yes, women hold very high positions in the Marxist PKK, even though they're 99% culturally Muslim), and they have done some very bad things, to include some (albeit fairly few) acts of no-kidding terrorism, like blowing up buses full of tourists. But then again the Turkish government has treated its Kurd minoruty lack third-class citizens for decades, so what should they have expected?

I've glossed over a lot here, like the Iranian Kurds (PJAK) fall under the PKK, lots of PKK are actually Syrian Kurds (about 30%), etc, etc, but this is a basic sketch.

[whistle]

3. When did the U.S. begin making Kurds our enemy? Oh since 1919

<snip>
The United States and the Kurds: A Brief History
Stephen Zunes | October 25, 2007

Editor: Erik Leaver

Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org

To add to the tragic violence unleashed throughout Iraq as a result of the U.S. invasion of that country, the armed forces of Turkey have launched attacks into the Kurdish-populated region in northern Iraq to fight guerrillas of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). Taking advantage of the establishment of an autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq, the PKK has been escalating their raids into Turkey, prompting the October 17 decision by the Turkish parliament to authorize military action within Iraq.

The Kurds are a nation of more than 30 million people divided among six countries, primarily in what is now northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey and with smaller numbers in northeastern Syria, northwestern Iran and the Caucuses. They are the world's largest nation without a state of their own. Their struggle for self-determination has been hampered by the sometime bitter rivalry between competing nationalist groups, some of which have been used as pawns by regional powers as well as by the United States.

The Beginnings

At the 1919 Versailles Conference, in which the victorious allies of World War I were carving up the remnants of the Ottoman Empire, President Woodrow Wilson unsuccessfully pushed for the establishment of an independent Kurdistan. Since that time, however, U.S. policy toward the Kurds has been far less supportive and often cynically opportunistic.

For example, in the mid-1970s, in conjunction with the dictatorial Shah of Iran, the United States goaded Iraqi Kurds into launching an armed uprising against the then left-leaning Iraqi government with the promise of continued military support. However, the United States abandoned them precipitously as part of an agreement with the Baghdad regime for a territorial compromise favorable to Iran regarding the Shatt al-Arab waterway. Suddenly without supply lines to obtain the necessary equipment to defend themselves, the Iraqi army marched into Kurdish areas and thousands were slaughtered. Then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger dismissed concerns about the humanitarian consequences of this betrayal by saying that "Covert action should not be confused with missionary work."

<MORE>

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4670

[shadowknows69]

4. Why wouldn't they?

After all we're there to insure that all Iraqis are equally protected right? Seems that some Iraqis are more equal than others.

[stanley01]

6. Oil

The Kurds are sitting on a major piece of the oil pie, the US
can run pipes through Turkey