Reply #18: Mixed loyalties divide Iraqi army

[modrepub]

By Tom Lasseter
Inquirer Foreign Staff

KIRKUK, Iraq - Kurdish leaders say they have inserted more than 10,000 of their militia members into Iraqi army divisions in northern Iraq to lay the groundwork to swarm the south, seize the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, and secure the borders of an independent Kurdistan.

Five days of interviews with Kurdish leaders and troops in the region suggest that U.S. plans to bring unity to Iraq before withdrawing American troops by training and equipping a national Iraqi army are gaining no traction. Instead, some Kurdish troops formally under U.S. and Iraqi national command are preparing to protect territory and ethnic and religious interests in the event of Iraq's fragmentation, which many of them say they think is inevitable.

The soldiers said that although they wore Iraqi army uniforms, they considered themselves members of the peshmerga - the Kurdish militia - and were awaiting orders from Kurdish leaders to break ranks.

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link: http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/front/13504148.htm

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Sounds like civil war to me