Fighting Grows Between Iraqis, Uneasy Kurds

NICOSIA, Cyprus —  Clashes between Republican Guard troops and hostile Kurds have increased sharply in recent days outside the Western-policed haven in northern Iraq, according to fresh reports Monday.

A U.S. military spokeswoman said that American troops heard gunfire in the city of Dahuk on Sunday night, and Kurdish civilians reported that seven Iraqi soldiers had been killed by rioters in Sulaymaniyah to the east last week. Trouble was also reported in Arbil and Zakhu.

The renewed violence in the north, which was torn by a bitter insurgency in March, underlines Kurdish unease over faltering political talks with President Saddam Hussein’s Baghdad regime and continuing signals that Western troops may soon be withdrawn from the area. Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, heightened Kurdish concerns by declaring, during his visit to the 30-by-80-mile haven area last week, that the Americans might go home sooner than expected.

With Hussein reconsolidating his repressive rule in central and southern Iraq, Kurdish leaders face the prospect of losing their chance to deal from strength, backed by the allied presence in the north.

U.N. economic sanctions remain a powerful club deterring Baghdad from moving against the Kurds, but the intransigent president has proved in the past that, to him, political control is more important than the economy.

After announcing broad agreement with Hussein’s negotiators two weeks ago, Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani and his political team have dropped out of sight, according to press reports from the Iraqi capital.

There has been no suggestion of foul play, but the Kurdish delegates reportedly checked out of the capital’s Rashid Hotel, where they maintained a high visibility during the second round of autonomy talks, and have not been seen by reporters in Baghdad recently.

Speculation that Barzani had returned to the Kurdish north for consultations with Jalal Talabani and other Kurdish political leaders could not be confirmed Monday.

The talks apparently have foundered on the key issue of the size of a broadened Kurdish autonomous region, specifically whether it would include the oil center of Kirkuk.

Meanwhile, exile leaders of Iraq’s Shiite Muslim majority, which also rose in rebellion against Hussein in the wake of the Persian Gulf War, have continued to criticize Barzani and Talabani for talking with Baghdad on any grounds.

In this atmosphere, tensions are tightly drawn in the north.

Violence reportedly broke out Thursday and Friday in Sulaymaniyah, the cultural capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, according to an Associated Press report from the town of Ranya, which like Sulaymaniyah lies outside the allied zone in a region controlled by Kurdish guerrillas near the Iranian border.

One report quoted witnesses as saying the trouble began when Iraqi troops shot and killed a guerrilla who attempted to enter the city armed. According to this account, widespread rioting later broke out after a military water-tanker truck ran off a road and smashed into a crowd of civilians, fatally injuring a couple and their child. The angry crowd killed seven Republican Guards, witnesses said, and some Kurds also died in the clashes.

In reports from Baghdad, news agencies said that Iraqi tanks had been sent into the city over the weekend, beefing up the security forces there. Sulaymaniyah lies in a high valley not far from the Iranian frontier, and as the traditional capital of Iraqi Kurdistan (Arbil is the capital of the existing autonomous region), the city has been at the heart of resistance to central rule from Baghdad for nearly a century.

The AP report quoted one traveler reaching Ranya as saying that Kurdish men had broken into the governor’s offices in the mountain capital and looted the armory.

Gen. Najmadin Nakishbandi, Sulaymaniyah’s military governor, fled the city, the witness said, adding that he himself left when rumors swept the city that more Republican Guard units were on their way. The guard, considered the best of Hussein’s military, were deployed to crush the insurgency in the north three months ago, using tanks, artillery and helicopter gunships against the lightly armed Kurdish guerrillas and civilians. The onslaught triggered a flood of nearly 2 million refugees into Turkey and Iran.

In Arbil, according to reports from Ranya, young Kurds staged nightly protests last week against Baghdad’s rule and military attempts to round up deserters. The AP dispatch quoted Fuad Mohammed, an Arbil driver, as saying, “Every night the young men are on the street, shouting slogans at the government.”

Some men suspected of being police informers have been beaten by the crowds, Mohammed said, but no fatalities were reported.

Similar tensions have swept the town of Zakhu, which lies within the haven zone to the west, and Dahuk, a city that stands just south of the American positions and has been patrolled by armed GIs. According to Capt. Brenda Marsh, a U.S. military spokeswoman at Incirlik air base in Turkey, the Americans heard what could have been an anti-tank weapon being fired inside Dahuk on Sunday night. The return of refugees to Dahuk over the last two weeks has put the city on edge.

Under agreement with the allied command, Baghdad withdrew its military units from the city, but returning Kurds are convinced that the streets are watched by plainclothes secret police, ready to reassert Baghdad’s hard authority once the Americans are withdrawn.