Pipeline Attack in Northern Iraq

This is from the NYtimes.
This shows that conflict in Iraq may be shifting to different locations including Kirkuk. If the Kurds don't act soon against the PKK they will face a Turkish incursion against PKK bases in northern Iraq.

Pipeline Attack in Northern Iraq


By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and QAIS MIZHER
Published: October 20, 2007
BAGHDAD, Oct. 19 — In the latest bout of violence around the northern oil city of Kirkuk, insurgents blew up an oil pipeline, battled a convoy carrying bodyguards of a deputy prime minister and ambushed a police chief, Iraqi officials said on Friday.

Meanwhile, a top Kurdish leader issued a statement vowing to “defend” Iraqi Kurdistan from potential attacks by the Turkish Army.

The violence on Friday underscored the continued instability of the area surrounding Kirkuk, where some Sunni insurgents fled earlier this year from strongholds in Baghdad and Baquba after increased American troop deployments in central Iraq.

The deputy prime minister, Barham Salih, a Kurd, was not in the convoy, according to an Iraqi security official in Kirkuk. But the ambush and fighting, which took place 60 miles south of Kirkuk, left one member of the convoy dead and another wounded, according to an official from Mr. Salih’s office.

Farther north, one of Kurdistan’s two most powerful leaders warned Turkey that Kurds would defend themselves against an invasion. The statement, by Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, reiterated in stronger terms previous admonitions by Kurdish leaders that Turkish forces should not cross into Iraqi Kurdistan to drive out Kurdish guerrillas who use mountain bases as safe havens after attacks inside Turkey.

A spokesman for the Kurdish Regional Government quoted a statement by Mr. Barzani as saying, “If the Turkish Army attacks Kurdistan, we are ready to defend the Kurdistan Regional Government and protect the democracy that Kurdish people live under.”

While American officials continue to highlight recent gains against Sunni extremists in western and central Iraq, there are concerns that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and other homegrown jihadist groups may be in a position to gain power around Kirkuk by exploiting the city’s tense social and political situation. In one example of that influence, the police near Kirkuk recently discovered a couple carrying a marriage license issued by the Islamic State of Iraq, a militant group linked with Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

The Kurds are intent on consolidating their control of Kirkuk, and many Sunni Arabs resettled there by Saddam Hussein now feel threatened, spawning fears that they will collaborate with extremists.

That is what happened in Baquba last year after government leaders in Baghdad appointed highly sectarian Shiites to command security forces in Diyala Province, a move that emboldened Sunni guerrillas to take control of the city.

In another attack 30 miles west of Kirkuk, gunmen ambushed the convoy carrying the Iraqi police commander of the town of Riyadh, Capt. Abdullah Jabouri, according to the police in nearby Hawija. Captain Jabouri escaped, the police said, but two guards were seriously wounded.

The pipeline was attacked near the village of Safra, about 40 miles west of Kirkuk. Initial reports suggested that insurgents used an improvised explosive device, said Col. Sadr Adeen Abdullah of the Iraqi Army. The explosion sent plumes of thick black smoke drifting all the way to Kirkuk, he said.

The United States military command in Baghdad reported the deaths of two American soldiers. One soldier died from a “noncombat-related illness” Wednesday after being flown to a military hospital in Germany. Another soldier was killed Thursday by an insurgent attack in southern Baghdad.

Also Friday, one of Iraq’s most influential Sunni politicians, Adnan al-Dulaimi, became the latest Iraqi leader to demand that the former defense minister, Sultan Hashem Ahmed, be given a stay of execution. Mr. Ahmed was convicted of war crimes and genocide for his role in Mr. Hussein’s 1988 attacks on the Kurds. But many Iraqi officials believe that he was an honorable military officer.

Mr. Ahmed and Ali Hassan al-Majid, better known as Chemical Ali, are to be hanged once the American military turns them over to Iraqi officials. American officials say they are waiting for Iraq to resolve an internal legal dispute about the two men. Late Friday, an American spokesman said both men were in American custody “with no scheduled date for transfer.”