In mountains of Iraq, Kurds train rigorously to battle Iran
By Kathy Gannon, Associated Press | February 4, 2007
QANDIL MOUNTAIN RANGE, Iraq -- Deep in the mountains of northern Iraq, a cluster of mud huts and the chatter of machine gun fire reveal another piece of the jigsaw puzzle called Kurdistan.
Here, recruits are training to fight Iran, one of the four countries that rule the fractured Kurdish people. And although they belong to an organization officially outlawed as terrorist by Washington, they appear to be operating unhindered either by Iraqi-Kurdish units or the limited US force in Kurdish areas.
A boulder-studded road spiraled up through sun-soaked mountains to a pale yellow building that flies the flag of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, considered a terrorist organization by the United States and its NATO ally, Turkey.
A giant face of Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK founder who is serving a life sentence in Turkey, is painted on the mountainside. Ten miles farther on lies the Qandil range, which runs like a snow-dusted spine along Iraq's northern border with Turkey and Iran.
In the camp, lugging heavy machine guns and AK-47 assault rifles, are men and women of the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan, or PEJAK, an offshoot set up by the PKK in 2004 to fight for Kurdish autonomy in Iran.
The PKK and its affiliates are spread through a region of about 35 million Kurds that straddles Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. PEJAK, the newest group, said it number s thousands of recruits and targets only Iran -- a mission that has made it the subject of intense speculation that it is being used to undermine the radical Islamic regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran .
In the Nov. 27 issue of The New Yorker, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh wrote that PEJAK was receiving support from the United States and from Israel, which fears Iran's nuclear ambitions and Ahmadinejad's call to wipe the Jewish state off the map.
The State Department declined to comment Friday on the report of US support for PEJAK.
PEJAK s ays it regularly launches raids into Iran, and Iran has fired back with artillery. In October, the English-language Iran Daily, published by Iran's official news agency, said Iran accused PEJAK of killing dozens of its armed forces in insurgent attacks.
Representative Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat and a presidential candidate who says the White House is overplaying the Iranian threat, last year wrote to President Bush expressing concern that the United States was using PEJAK to weaken Ahmadinejad.
James Brandon, an analyst for the US-based Jamestown Foundation, told the Associated Press that PEJAK has refused to discuss its funding sources. But he said its greatest threat to Iran is not military. It has veins running deep into the Iranian Kurdish population and is offering to join forces with other restless minorities in Iran, he said.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev of Israel said, "Israel is not involved in any way in what's going on there."
Meir Javedanfar, an Israel-based specialist on Iran, noted that Israel has a long standing relationship with Iraqi Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani. He said, "It would not surprise me to discover that Israel is using the Kurdish areas of Iraq to undermine Iran's influence in Iraq and monitor what's going on along the Iranian border, as well as to undermine the Iranian government itself."
The AP recently spent two winter days at a PEJAK training camp tucked in the shadow of the Qandil Mountains in northern Iraq, listening to its followers describe their goals and operations in Iran.
According to a camp commander, Hussein Afsheen, "PKK gives ideological and logistical support" while funding comes from Iranian Kurds. He said he didn't know of US funding, but would gladly accept it.
The camp is designed to toughen up the new recruits, who numbered 38 during the AP's visit. Beds are single wool blankets spread over a rough concrete floor, or over a narrow steel bench that hugs an icy mud wall. The only heat comes from a wood-fired potbelly stove.
It's still pitch - dark and freezing at 5 a.m., when the fighters line up and pledge allegiance to the Kurdish cause.
Soztar Afreen, a 22-year-old Syrian with a quick smile, said she joined five years ago and the first months were tough.
"I had trouble keeping up. You have to toughen yourself. The physical work is difficult, but once you get used to it life here gets easier," she said.
She recalled that her parents, PKK sympathizers, sent her off with this plea: "Don't let down the struggle; make us proud."
Gunfire and explosions echoed off mountainsides as recruits learned to fire artillery, rocket launchers, and automatic rifles. They are taught to lay ambushes and to endure long hours isolated and in hiding.
Food is spartan -- potatoes, tomato broth, onions, and a lot of bread baked flat in a deep stone oven.
Much time is spent in ideological training and studying Ocalan's vision of a united Kurdistan .
PEJAK ideology is rigorously leftist and includes equality of the sexes -- unusual in this region. The camp has two leaders, a man and a woman.
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