Perfidious Albion cosies up to Kurdistan

Paul Bremer's "My Year in Iraq" is remarkable more for what is missing than what is recorded and discussed. February 2nd 2004, the day of Eid al Adha is a day that will live in infamy for the Kurds of Northen Iraq. The day celebrates the Feast of the Sacrifice, commemorating Abraham's willingness to obey God by sacrificing his son.

On that holy day two suicide bombers entered the Headquarters of the 2 leading party HQ's, in Erbil, that of the Kurdish Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan blew themselves to heaven to be joined by 67 people and left over 200 more with horrific injuries.

At the time Bremer is recorded saying in a studied diplomatic mantra,that this was "a cowardly attack on innocent human beings as well as on the very principle of democratic pluralism in Iraq", but in the book, nothing, silence. However it is also the day these attacks recorded a step change in that these were said to be the first major strikes in Iraq in which the assailants strapped explosives to their bodies - rather than using vehicles. Like much of Bremer's book it is a string of events with no analysis, no overriding undestanding of the flow of events, the poltical movements and the interplay of the major forces at work.

It was also the weekend that UN (US agent) weapons inspector David Kay told the US Senate Armed Services Committee that "it turns out we were all wrong, probably," about the perceived Iraqi threat of WMD. From this point on public support by Coalition Governments and populations can be seen to have steadily declined. Bremer doesn't seem to have noticed - except when Kay produced his interim report in October to the Senate he said (page 185) the lack of WMD's must have been, " ..bitter news on the Pentagon E Ring" ... you bet. The Chancelleries of Europe were not too pleased either.

Among the dead were KDP Deputy Prime Minister Sami Abdul Rahman and KDP Minister of Agriculture Saad Abdullah Adnan Mufti, and several other key Kurdish politicians died in the bombings - Responsibility for the blasts was claimed by a hitherto obscure group calling itself Ansar al-Sunna (Defenders of the Tradition), which trumpeted the attack as a blow against "two dens of the devils . . . inflicting harm on the collaborators with the Jews and Christians." (Associated Press, 4 February 2004)

Ansar al-Sunna is caimed to have evolved from Ansar al-Islam [Defenders of Islam], a group with ties to Iran and which administration officials have linked to al-Qaeda.

Operating under the title Jund al-Islam (Soldiers of Islam), Ansar al-Islam grew out of the September 2001 unification of several militant Islamist groups which had taken root in the mountains of northern Iraq along the Iranian border.

At the time of the invasion US Special Forces, coupled with PUK peshmerga, attacked the town of Khurmal 3 miles from the Iranian border on 29th March 2003, killing or scattering hundreds of fighters who had gathered there.

Ansar al-Islam adheres to a rigid militaristic Salafi ideology. Its founding declaration states that "jihad in Iraq has become an individual duty of every Muslim after the infidel enemy attacked the land of Islam" and unequivocally claims itself as a pan-Islamic movement.

If anything this event stiffened the resolve of the Kurds to establish their own rule in what they see as their territory, also blaming the US for allowing the Iranian border to be penetrated by Iranian backed and financed "foreign" insurgents.

Kim Howells in Kurdistan

It is therefore interesting that in visiting the Kurdish territories this week British Minister of State for the Middle East Dr. Kim Howells met President Masoud Barzani and KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani to discuss energy and infrastructure - which means the future government of Kirkuk and it's oil.

Rentagob and highly peripatetic Howells (he was in Cyprus and Kuwait this week) said he supports settling the Kirkuk issue through a free, fair, and transparent referendum in accordance with Article-140 of the Constitution of Iraq.

It is therefore interesting that Howells in touring road projects, conference and cultural centres, housing projects, the new expanded airport , and the University of Salahaddin he also found the time to visit the Sami Abdul Rahman Park where he paused (in a well advised stop) at the memorial to the martyrs of the 1 February 2004 terrorist attacks in Erbil.

Oil Drilling commenced / University of Kurdistan

Turkey’s Ganel Enerji and Switzerland’s Addax Petroleum International Ltd. (and here)started drilling at Taqtaq, near Koysinjaq, (click here for large map) east of the regional capital Erbil in May in the first new oil development in the area since the invasion which Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani said ...

"According to the new Iraqi constitution we have all the rights to explore and produce the oil of our land and to exploit it to meet the peaceful needs of our people. We secured these rights through the sacrifice and struggle of our people, the result of thousands of people who have shed their blood in martyrdom for this land, and through the thousands who were displaced. We shall, therefore, never be prepared to surrender these rights."

A point no doubt that he made forcefully when he and Mr Howells discussed "energy and infrastructure".

He may have also discussed the opening of The University of Kurdistan – Hawler, in Erbil which will commence course with 400 Kurdish students in September 2006. Course will be in English and will be validated by Bradford University. Bradford University will monitor the curricula, the quality of teaching and the process of examination. Arrangements are also being made for Bradford University to accredit the University of Kurdistan’s degrees.

The new (June 6th) UK Ambassador in welcoming President Masoud Barzani, Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani at an Embassy shindig on the Queen's Birthday on 15th June, claimed that full UK diplomatic representation would probably soon follow and meanwhile Ms. Andrea Reidy, was taking up the post of British Consul General based in Kirkuk.

Should the Iraqi nation be sundered into three parts, the UK is appropriately well placed to maintain it's presence where the oil is - a policy no doubt well founded on the principles which guided the annexation of Mosul in 1929, which many in the FO will not have forgotten - indeed some may well have been in post at the time.

FOOTNOTE

Addax Petroleum IPO'd on the Toronto Stock Exchange (AXC) in March 2006 at C$21 and now trade at C$29.75.Their principal interests are in marginal fields in Africa. Worth a look.