November 13 2002

The United States has renewed its covert co-operation with Kurds in northern Iraq who could be critical players in any future US-led attack.

Kurdish officials say US intelligence teams are in Kurdish territory on advance work for an attack on Iraq, establishing a listening post and investigating the strength and operations of an Islamic group with al-Qaeda links.

Washington has also promised to protect the Kurds if Iraq sends troops into their region.

"If Saddam Hussein invades the north, the United States will act immediately," Jalal Talabani, head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of two main Kurdish movements in the north, said. "Now there is all kinds of co-operation with the United States."

The involvement marks a comeback for the US, which was forced to withdraw its CIA station from the north after Saddam invaded in 1996. That offensive also led to the collapse of the north as the headquarters for the US-backed Iraqi opposition coalition. Since then, the CIA and the coalition have operated from outside Iraq.

Some people here fear that Saddam might launch a pre-emptive thrust into the north to divert attention from the renewed effort to make him give up weapons of mass destruction.

"Every person in Kurdistan has prepared food and medicine and is ready to go to the mountains or the border for fear that Saddam Hussein will move on the north. He can't attack other countries, but he can hit his own people. And he's slaughtered us here more than once before," said Nasreen Mustafa Sadiq, the Harvard-educated minister of reconstruction and development in the Kurds' government.

In Washington, officials at the CIA and the Pentagon said on Monday they could not confirm the reports of increased co-operation with the Kurds or any new commitments.

Much of the north has been protected from Iraqi airstrikes by US and British warplanes enforcing a no-fly zone, but the unofficial internal border on the ground is now also considered a "red line" that Saddam may not cross. "If Saddam violates that red line again the response will not be mere punishment," said another Kurdish leader.

"The response would be to annihilate him altogether."

Kurdish leaders expect to hold talks with US officials about further co-operation after a conference of joint Iraqi opposition forces in Brussels this month.

One Kurdish leader said he wants the US to guarantee it will prevent any interference by neighbouring states during or after a war to expel Saddam. "We now await guarantees from the United States," said Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdish Democratic Party.

Kurds are particularly concerned about Turkey and Iran, and the danger that a move by either would provoke a reaction from the other.

-- Anonymous, November 13, 2002