8A NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAS
MONDAY,OCTOBER 29,2007
INTERNATIONAL
Kurdish rebels raid in Turkey
BY SUZAN FRASER ASSOCIATED PRESS
ANKARA, Turkey — Attack helicopters buzzed over a hilly region in southeastern Turkey on Sunday looking for Kurdish rebels after troops reportedly killed 15 separatist guerrillas in a morning operation far from the increasingly tense border with Iraq.
The fighting occurred in the predominantly Kurdish province of Tunceli, as the government pressed on with its efforts against the Kurdistan Worker's Party, or PKK, whose fighters have killed at least 42 people in the past month in raids on Turkish territory.
Turkey has threatened to send troops into Iraq to hunt down the rebels, and has demanded the extradition of PKK leaders. The United States, Iraq and other countries have been pressing for Turkey to refrain from cross-border operations.
The top American commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, said Sunday the U.S. military was playing a role in trying to defuse the tensions, but he declined to elaborate.
"I am actually not going to say
"For the most part both the Iraqi and the Turkish government, as well as the U.S. government are dealing with the challenges," he said at a news conference after formally assuming command of northern Iraq at a ceremony at a U.S. base near Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikit, 80 miles north of Baghdad.
In Turkey, pressure has been building on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to take action, with
anything about what we may be doing with our long-standing NATO allies Turkey, although we clearly are doing things with them," he said.
Erdogan called for unity between Turks and his country's minority Kurds Sunday, but reiterated his government's determination to fight Iraq-based separatist Kurdish rebels.
The comments seemed aimed at allaying Turkish frustration, piqued on Friday when the American military commander in northern Iraq, Mai, Gen. Benjamin Mixon, said he planned to do "absolutely nothing" to counter Kurdish rebels operating from the region.
Mixon handed over regional command to Maj. Gen, Mark Hertling on Sunday as scheduled. After the ceremony, Hertling told reporters that it would be "inappropriate" for him to discuss possible military measures while "diplomatic efforts are ongoing."
"As long as we are firmly bound together, the treacherous separatist terrorist attacks will never reach their goal," Erdogan said in a message ahead of the Oct. 29 celebrations to mark the 84th anniversary of the Turkish republic.
tens of thousands of Turks staging anti-PKK protests in recent weeks.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A 9-mile race across Istanbul's Bosporus bridge to the European side of the city turned into an anti-PKK protest Sunday, with thousands of runners waving Turkish flags and shouting slogans denouncing the rebels.
"I want to declare this one more time: The struggle we lead against the separatist terrorism that aims to destroy our unity and our constitutional order will continue with belief and determination," he said.
But riot police cracked down quickly on a pro-PKK rally in the poor Okmeydani neighborhood of Istanbul, shooting tear gas into the crowd and dispersing the 150 demonstrators. Some young men then threw rocks at police before running into side streets.
A Turkish soldier stands guard at a military post in Cukurca, in the Hakka province, on the Turkish-Iraqi border, southeastern Turkey on Saturday. Turkey's top military commander, Gen. Yasar Buykanit, had promised to make Iraq-based Kurdish rebels "grieve with an intensity that they cannot imagine," while Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his nation would fight "when needed," regardless of international pressure.
Tunceli is some 340 miles northeast of the province of Sirnak and 400 miles northeast of the province of Hakkari, the places where most of the recent fighting with the rebels has taken place. Sirnak and Hakkari border Iraq.
Before the fighting in Tunceli, the Turkish military blocked roads into the region with armored personnel carriers and soldiers. By afternoon, long lines of trucks were backed up waiting to get through.
Fifteen rebels were killed in the operation, according to the private Dogan news agency, which was at the scene.
A regional official confirmed the Turkish military conducted an operation against rebels, but declined to provide further details.
IRAQ
U.S. hands over reigns in southern Shiite province
Karbala becomes 18th province to return to Iraqi hands
BAGHDAD — U.S. forces will turn over security to Iraqi authorities in the southern Shite province of Karbala on Monday, the American commander for the area said, despite fighting between rival militia factions that has killed dozens.
The fighting broke out after calls from imams at local mosques to expel al-Qaida from the area, labeling them as "false mujahdeens" or false holy warriors, according to a provincial police officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.
But the target date has slipped repeatedly, highlighting the difficulties in developing Iraqi police forces and the slow pace of economic and political progress in areas still troubled by daily violence.
A bomb struck a mainly Shiite town southeast of Baghdad on Saturday for the second time in less than a week, the deadliest attack on a day in which at least 23 people were killed or found dead.
In northern Iraq, clashes broke out between al-Qaida in Iraq fighters and a rival Sunni group near the volatile city of Samarra, and police said some 16 militants were killed.
BY KIM GAMEL ASSOCIATED PRESS
Also Saturday, the U.S. military announced the death of an American soldier killed Thursday during small arms fire during operations in the Salahuddin province, a mainly Sunni area north of Bashdad.
Karbala will become only the eighth of Iraq's 18 provinces to revert to Iraqi control, despite President Bush's prediction in January that the Iraqi government would have responsibility for security in all of the provinces by November.
Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, who leads the 3rd Infantry Division, said the Iraqis were ready to assume full control of their own security in Karbala province, home to shrines of two major Shiite saints, Imam Abbas and Imam Hussein. U.S. troops would remain ready to step in if help were needed.
Lynch dismissed concerns about Shiite rivalries in the region, two months after clashes between militiamen battling for power erupted during a major pilgrimage in the provincial capital, also called Karbala, left at least 52 people dead.
"Of course there's violence in the area but not nearly of the magnitude that would cause me to be troubled by it," he told The Associated Press on Saturday.
"This place is about a struggle for power and influence and there are indeed inter-Shaia rivalries where different groups are trying to be in charge and sometimes they revert to violence, but it's not at the magnitude that's got me concerned," he said during a visit to a patrol base being constructed in Nahrawan, a Shiite city of 120,000 on the southeastern edge of Baghdad.
Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, has faced several bombings that have killed dozens of people since the Sunni insurgency began in the late summer of 2003, just months after the U.S.-led invasion in March.
It also was the site of one of the boldest and most sophisticated attacks on U.S. soldiers in the war in Iraq, when gunmen driving American SUVs, speaking English, wearing U.S. military uniforms and carrying American weapons abducted four U.S. soldiers at the
provincial headquarters and later shot them to death. A fifth soldier was killed in the Jan. 20 attack.
More recently, Karbala has been a focal point for rising tensions throughout the mainly Shiite south among rival groups maneuvering for power over the oil-rich area that also profits from religious tourism.
But Lynch, who commands a volatile mix of Sunni and Shiite areas south of Baghdad, said the Iraqis were ready to take over.
"They've established a Karbala operations command that works with the Iraqi prime minister, and when security problems arise it's the Iraqi solution to the problem, not the coalition solution to the problem," he said.
The provincial police chief, Brig. Gen. Raed Shakir, said more than 10,000 Iraqi security forces were "fully prepared" to maintain order.
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"During the past days, our forces were able to confront and chase armed groups without the help of the multinational forces. We were able to restore security by our own. This shows that we can work independently from the multinational forces," he said.
In January, Bush announced his new strategy for stabilizing Iraq and his decision to send an additional 30,000 U.S. combat troops to Baghdad and to Anbar province. He, said, at the time, that the Iraqi government "plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November." The Pentagon later amended that to next March, and then again to at least next July.
Last year, the relatively peacefuil southern provinces of Muthanna, Dhi Qar and Najaf were returned to Iraqi security control. In April, Maysan province in the southeast was the fourth to convert.
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