The prosecution of the war on terrorism goes on:
U.S. Strikes Alleged Al Qaeda Allies
washingtonpost.com
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, March 22, 2003; 8:31 AM
GRDA DROZENA, Iraq, March 22 -- A barrage of 40 to 50 Tomahawk cruise missiles slammed into mountainside positions held by a radical Islamic militia force early this morning, killing and injuring an estimated 100 fighters, according to Kurdish commanders working with U.S. Special Forces who directed the attack.
The two-hour missile attack on Ansar al-Islam, a militant group U.S. officials said is linked to al Qaeda, began at 12:30 a.m. and was followed by a bombing raid by a single warplane shortly after 8 a.m.
"Ansar took a very big hit," said Fakhradeen Abdullah Hamasaid, a Kurdish militia intelligence official who visited this hillock at midday. "If God wills it, in the next few days the influence of the [Patriotic Union of Kurdistan] and Kurdish regional government will reach all the areas controlled by Ansar al Islam."
Since 2001, the group has been dug in against mountains that border Iran just outside the town of Halabja. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has said Ansar harbored the al Qaeda operative who organized the assassination of a U.S. diplomat in Amman, Jordan, last October.
Locally, Ansar is better known for declaring war on the secular rule of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of two ethnic Kurdish parties that govern northern Iraq, an area beyond the reach of President Saddam Hussein's government. The Kurds are U.S. allies.
Six Americans-three of in uniform, three in civilian clothes-arrived on this hillock shortly after midnight, with radios and electronic equipment, according to Kurdish militiamen who man this forward position. The visitors studied the corner of the Halabja Valley and mountainside held by Ansar.
Half an hour later, the first Tomahawks roared into the valley from the direction of the Red Sea, where Kurdish commanders said they were told U.S. warships were loitering. Two of the missiles exploded-and one simply flamed out after landing-in the village of Khormal, an assemblage of gray buildings a mile or two in the distance where Ansar fighters stay at night with their families. The village is controlled by a more moderate Islamic group, and an undetermined number of the dead and injured were associated with that group, which Kurdish officials said had been repeatedly warned of an impending air strike.
Another missile hit the Ansar radio station in a village called Gulp. The Tomahawks also struck the steeply rising mountain wall where the extremists had taken refuge in caves in anticipation of a U.S. attack. Witnesses said two missiles appeared to continue over the mountains toward Iran, which is widely understood to support Ansar with weapons and access to its border, the only side on which it is not surrounded by Kurdish militiamen.
Mustafa Saeed Qadir, a senior PUK militia commander, said no civilians were known to have been injured in the strike. The claim could not be immediately verified.
Qadir said more U.S. air strikes were expected today and tonight before Kurdish militiamen move toward Ansar positions. The commander said U.S. Central Command was also considering "sending airborne" troops but that the planning was impeded by uncertainties over whether neighboring Turkey will open its airspace to U.S. planes.
The Kurdish autonomous zone in northern Iraq area has been a haven for U.S. intelligence teams operating discreetly there for months, preparing two lengthy but spartan airstrips and making other preparations to open a northern front against President Saddam Hussein's forces.
Turkey's refusal to accommodate a large U.S. infantry force caused Pentagon planners to reassess their original plans, and the NATO ally's delayed approval of overflight permission has kept even contingency plans off balance.
Kurdish officials reported one setback for their own plans to assist U.S. offensive operations in the north. Iraqi security forces rounded up 61 Kurdish men this week and executed them by firing squad at the Iraqi-held Khalid Camp, said Barham Salih, prime minister of the half of Kurdish self-governed territory administered by the PUK.
Another Kurdish official said the men were members of a Kurdish underground group making preparations to seize control of the city of Kirkuk from Hussein's government, in a reprise of the 1991 uprising during the closing days of the Persian Gulf War. The plotters were found out when Iraqi security forces discovered two of them with satellite phones the official said were paid for by the United States.
The beginning of the war has tantalized Kurds hoping to return to their places of origin. Amin Hussein, an old farmer, stood on a hill less than a mile from the village of Hazer, northwest of Kalek. Hazer is in Iraqi hands, and Hussein claimed that wheat fields belonging to him had been confiscated 28 years ago, during another Kurdish uprising. "We will go right back as soon as the Iraqis leave," he said. Hussein expected Arab settlers in Hazer to flee.
Everyone was on the lookout for American troops. "No soldiers yet," Hussein said. "But we've had plenty of reporters come by."
U.S. air strikes on Friday also targeted Khalid Camp, a huge military complex southwest of Kirkuk, a city of about 1 million people and the hub of an oil-rich province. The complex lies along the main highway leading south to Tikrit, the home town and tribal base of President Saddam Hussein.
Fatih Kamorosh, a tribal leader in a village northwest of the city, told reporters he was awakened at 5:45 a.m. and counted 30 explosions.
"There seems to have been heavy casualties at the garrison," said a senior official in the autonomous Kurdish zone that begins just 25 miles north and west of Kirkuk. The city was hit three more times after dark, the third strike igniting a fire visible from 20 miles away.
The headquarters of the Iraqi army corps based in Al Mansuriyah, about 50 miles northwest of Baghdad, was hit as well, according to Kurdish commanders.
Detonations were also visible Friday morning and Thursday night in Mosul, the third-largest city in Iraq and the northernmost major population center in the section of Iraq controlled by Hussein's government.
Correspondent Daniel Williams in Bardarasha, Iraq, contributed to this report.
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