My transcript from AlJazzeera English video (below).
Turkey had threatened this for months but it still caught everyone by surprise . . .
Turkey claimed 10,000 soldiers crossed the border into Iraq, though the Turkish authorities and the Iraqi government subsequently put the figure much lower. Impossible to say who’s right since the area of fighting is sealed off.
Update 1:18 PM EST 2/23/08 by LithiumCola: CNN is calling this a “major escalation.”
Turkey Says as Many as 44 PKK Rebels Killed in Iraq (Update3)
By Steve Bryant and Mark Bentley
Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) — Turkish forces killed as many as 44 Kurdish militants and lost five soldiers of their own in the first two days of their largest incursion into Iraq in 11 years, the armed forces said late yesterday.
Aerial bombardment killed 24 Kurdish militants and a further 20 may have been killed in artillery and helicopter attacks against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, Turkey’s military in Ankara said on its Web site. It didn’t provide details about the deaths of the Turkish troops.
The U.S., the United Nations and Germany have called on Turkey to show restraint after troops pushed over the border into northern Iraq late on Feb. 21. Iraq’s Kurdish-controlled northern region has remained relatively peaceful since the U.S.-led invasion five years ago.
This event has been diaried by joejoejoe here and by ORDem here.
The Turkish forces apparently went into Iraq to attack the PKK but Iraqi Kurdish forces — not just PKK forces — are preparing to fight back.
Iraqi Kurds ready to confront Turkish troops
By Yasseen Taha and Leila Fadel | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Friday, February 22, 2008SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq – Iraqi Kurdish officials on Friday ordered 6,000 Kurdish militiamen to take up new positions in Iraq’s Dohuk province as hundreds of Turkish troops crossed the border in what Turkey said was an attack on Kurdish rebels who’d sought shelter there.
How many Turkish troops had entered Iraq was uncertain. American military officials in Baghdad estimated the number at 1,000, but Kurdish rebels said the incursion involved 10,000 troops.
— snip —
But the militia didn’t intervene in fighting between the Turks and rebels from the Kurdistan Worker’s Party, commonly known as the PKK.
Still, the makeup of the forces suggested that Kurdish Regional President Massoud Barzani probably approved the deployment: More than 4,000 of the Kurdish forces belong to the Zeravany, the military wing of Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party. The remaining 2,000 are members of Iraqi Kurdistan’s peshmerga militia, the regional government’s armed force.
The Iraqi and Turkish governments and US officials are, one assumes, undercounting the invading Turkish forces for diplomatic reasons. That won’t matter much if the Iraqi Kurds get drawn into the fight. How long this will last, no one seems to know.
___________________
From Today’s Zaman, the English Language Turkish newspaper:
Ground offensive launched into Iraq
Thousands of Turkish troops crossed into northern Iraq in the biggest ground offensive in a decade against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which uses bases in the Kurdish-controlled region for attacks on Turkey.
And . . .
US seemingly approves ground operation
On the day Turkey launched its long-awaited ground operation into northern Iraq to root out Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorists, the US tried to maintain a low profile, while stating that it was happy with the level of cooperation with Turkey to combat terrorism.
Learning the news of a ground operation from Today’s Zaman in Brussels, US Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Matthew J. Bryza said he needed more information to give a complete reaction but nevertheless underlined that he was “very pleased” his government had “finally fulfilled our commitment to Turkey.”
— snip —
When asked by Today’s Zaman’s about the ground operation, Bryza replied as follows: “What I can say is that the US has lived up to its pledges, finally, to defeat terrorist PKK elements in northern Iraq as well as in Turkey. As you know, that happened when President [George W.] Bush met Prime Minister [Recep Tayyip] Erdo?an on Nov. 5 in Washington and agreed that the US would share intelligence that would allow Turkish military to identify PKK terrorists and attack them. Since then we have a very successful record of cooperation. We have been comfortable to work out specific procedures to ensure that those operations are limited just to encounter terrorists and that damage caused to innocent civilians and property is minimized. Those goals have been achieved relatively well up until now.
“A land operation is a whole new level and I obviously need to find more to be more specific. What I can say is how we have been doing until is now quite well. I am very pleased my government finally fulfilled our commitment to Turkey to eliminate the terror threat, which is for Turkey the number-one national security concern.”
Does that make any sense to you at all? What is US Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Matthew J. Bryza talking about?
My only prelimary analysis is that the US allowing military pressure on the Kurds at the behest of both Turkey and Maliki, neither of whom want Kurdish independence or Kurdish control of the oil rich city of Kirkuk in the Iraqi north.
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Daily Kos.
This event ought to be on the front page of every newspaper in the country and all over CNN. But I’m not seeing it.
f%^&*ing SICK of seeing the word “terrorist” attached to every single person or group the PNAC decides to label…. it’s time for a cartoon: “I’m a terrorist, you’re a terrorist, we’re all terrorists too!”
that this is a back door method of shortening the leash on the kurds……..
george does not yet have a reconciliation with the kurds,sunnis, and shia…….
this will pressure the kurds…..
Turkey had been THREATENING THIS FOR MONTHS, yet we “were still taken by surprise”.
“Nobody could have imagined” Osama would attack NYC (“Osama bin Laden DETERMINED TO STRIKE INSIDE US”)
“Nobody could have imagined” New Orleans would drown (2001 FEMA documents actually predict exactly that)
“Nobody could have imagined” they’d attack buildings with airplanes (FOX Network television show ‘The Lone Gunmen’ depicted exactly that, just a few months before 9/11/2001)
“Nobody could have imagined” NAFTA would cost us jobs (one name: Ross Perot)
“Nobody could have imagined” Iraq would turn into a quagmire (except Dick Cheney back in 1994)
It seems BushCo has no imagination.
It does make one wonder if the US is not trying to
intimidatepressure the Kurds into going along with the Iraq hydrocarbon law and accept the terms pushed by the Arabs (12% of oil revenues and shared control over Kirkuk instead of 17% of oil revenues and complete control over Kirkuk). Intimidating our closest allies in Iraq would be a shabby thing to do, but so very Bush.Turkey and Iraqi Kurd conflict… could get hot
doesn’t surprise me not one bit
Our managing editor on The Environmentalist has first-hand experience with the Kurds (menu item there: top tags: Kurds). She mentioned this is a replay from years ago, when the Talibani and Barzani clans (power in Iraqi Kurdistan) teamed with Turkey to drive the PKK out of northern Iraq.
She says one way it could escalate is if they involved the Peshmerga (either by the Peshmerga soldiers taking sides or if the Turks accidentally kill a Peshmerga soldier – something she hears they’re trying not to do). In that case, it would become a cause among the Iraqi Kurds. Otherwise, rather than a message from the Turks about the oil situation, a strategic move to disrupt the PKK before the winter snows melt, when the PKK traditionally crosses the border to re-engage the Turks.
My analysis here.
Bottom line: The Turks are looking for a propaganda victory to show the folks back home they’re actually doing something about the growing number of PKK attacks in Eastern Turkey, and the US media is happy to oblige by playing up the conflict for all its worth.
Realistically however, 10,000 (max) troops is not even close to the number needed to knock the PKK on its heels in any significant way – especially considering the challenges of conducting this offensive operation in the middle of winter.
Indeed, the Turks repeatedly ran similar operations in the 90’s with more than 3 times the number of troops they are currently using (with Saddam’s blessing BTW) and still couldn’t finish the PKK off.
No reason to think they will be any more successful this time. In fact, by overhyping their ‘major’ offensive, the Turks may very well hand the PKK its own propaganda victory when people realize that the PKK isn’t beaten.