[NYTr] Bombs Away Against PKK, Huge Bombing in Pakistan

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

excerpted from Informed Comment - Dec 23-24, 2007
http://www.juancole.com


Turkey Bombs again;

Demo Planned against new Babil Governor

Turkey bombed northern Iraq again on Sunday, in an apparent attack on
suspected bases of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) guerrilla group.
Early reports were that no one was killed.

US officials in Baghdad are convinced that some of the reduction in the
number of attacks on US troops is owing to conscious Iranian decisions
not to back the Shiite militiamen who had targeted Americans. If this
is true, it is a refutation of the Cheney gang's insistence that the
Iranians can only be dealt with by force and enmity.

Asharq al-Awsat reports in Arabic that the Sadr Movement is planning a
big rally on Monday against the appointment of Fadil Raddam as the new
provincial police chief for Babil. They maintain that Raddam was the
head of the Baath secret police in Najaf in the later Saddam years.
Another source says that the tribal leaders are planning a big
demonstration for Monday.

The death of the jihadi guerrilla movement in Iraq against the US has
been much exaggerated, according to Aljazeera.

                           ***

Turkey Bombs Iraq Again;

Massive Bombing in Pakistan

Turkey bombed the Amadiya area of northern Iraq on Saturday. Ankara
said that it was targeting bases of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK)
guerrilla organization. The PKK stands accused of killing over two
dozen Turkish troops in recent months. Turkey says that the culprits
then cross into Iraq, where they are given safe haven by the Kurdistan
Regional Authority of Massoud Barzani.

The Turkish chief of staff says that the US implicitly endorses these
bombing raids on American-occupied Iraq. He is correct, since the US
controls Iraqi air space and Turkish jets could not scramble over Iraqi
Kurdistan if the US had not provided Ankara with "Identify Friend or
Foe" codes. Otherwise the Turkish planes would risk being perceived as
hostiles by the US Air Force, and would therefor risk being shot down.

In other news of northern Iraq, the constitutionally mandated
referendum in Kirkuk has been delayed for six months on a United
Nations recommendation. Kirkuk is ethically mixed, but the Kurds wish
to annex it to their Kurdistan Regional Government, a region that now
encompasses three former nothern provinces. Kirkuk is more ethnically
mixed than the others, however, and the annexation will likely provoke
violence by Turkmen and Arabs who do not want to be dragooned into a
Kurdish mini-state.

Sawt al-Iraq reports in Arabic that Iraqi premier Barham Salih said
that Kirkuk belongs to the Kurds, and that the postponement of the
referendum would rob Kurdistan of what was rightfully hers. Abdullah
Gul, now the Turkish president, had threatened, when he was minister of
foreign affairs, that if the Kurds annexed Kirkuk, Turkey would invade
to prevent it.

Washington is petrified that the repeated Turkish incursions will throw
northern Iraq into chaos.

Speaking of chaos, guerrillas bombed a mosque in northern Pakistan,
killing 50 person, on Saturday. Barnett Rubin explains this horrific
event as part of a concerted plan by al-Qaeda and the neo-Taliban in
Pakistan to cut off and surround the northern city of Peshawar.