BAGHDAD/ANKARA, 9 October 2003 — US forces based north and west of Baghdad came under renewed attack yesterday as Ankara’s decision to send troops to Iraq caused an uproar in both the war-torn country and Turkey.
Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets across Turkey yesterday to denounce the government’s controversial decision to send troops to Iraq, with police detaining some 60 Kurdish activists. Anti-riot police detained six among the 100-strong group, Anatolia news agency reported.
In Iraq, a US convoy based in the region of Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit came under rocket-propelled grenade attack, leaving one soldier wounded, US military spokesperson Josslyn Aberle said.
And a military convoy was also targeted near the flashpoint town of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, in a grenade attack, a witness said, adding there were no US casualties but that a female Iraqi civilian was wounded in what were four consecutive blasts.
US troops, meanwhile, uncovered more substantial arms caches and arrested nine people in the troublesome region north of the capital, Aberle said. US forces captured 112 Iraqis, including a general reported to have links to Saddam and financial backers of anti-coalition attacks, the military said yesterday.
“The general officer they captured, Abed Hamed Mowhush Al-Mahalowi... was a Republican Guard air defense commander. He is reported to have links with Saddam Hussein and financiers of anti-coalition activities,” a statement said.
However, the turmoil deepened in Iraq as the US-appointed Governing Council condemned Turkey’s plan to send thousands of troops across the border into Iraq, whose ethnic Kurdish population is alarmed at the prospect. “Sending these troops would delay our regaining sovereignty,” said council member Nasseer Chaderchi, warning the deployment could affect relations between the two neighbors.
Chaderchi said Turkish authorities recently told council members they would not send troops to Iraq without their approval.
But Turkey’s Parliament authorized on Tuesday the dispatch of troops for a maximum of one year, leaving the decision on the size, location and timing of the deployment to the government to work out with the US.
The Turkish troops — Ankara has talked of sending up to 10,000 — would join a US-led stabilization force already numbering more than 155,000 from 34 countries, the overwhelming majority from the US. Council members said they were unanimous in opposing the planned deployment and that a statement reflecting this would be issued later.
“It is the wrong thing to do. It does not add to security,” said member Mahmud Othman.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd like Othman, voiced strong objections and stressed in London on Tuesday that the council did not want any of Iraq’s immediate neighbors to take part in peacekeeping missions. But Turkey’s ambassador in Baghdad, Osman Paksut, yesterday told the council head Iyad Allawi that Turkish troops would not come to Iraq as an occupation force but to help in reconstruction and stabilization.
In Istanbul, meanwhile, protesters chained themselves to the wire fencing of an American school and shouted “We will not allow our soldiers to be killed,” as others gathered separately on Taksim central square and in front of the offices of the governing Justice and Development Party.
In the Turkish capital Ankara, dozens of members of trade unions, political parties and civic groups gathered in front of the Parliament, where legislators on Tuesday voted for a government motion to dispatch troops to neighboring Iraq. “Turkey should take its hands off Iraq,” the group chanted.
“Turkey has been dragged by the $8.5 billion carrot,” opposition MP Haluk Koc, who joined the demonstrators, said in reference to the $8.5 billion that Washington agreed to loan Ankara last month in return for its “cooperation” in Iraq. “Don’t send our sons to the Iraqi hell. Don’t make them shields for American soldiers,” protestors chanted in the northern city of Trabzon, the news agency reported.
Turkey’s press offered a mixed reaction, with the Vatan daily calling it a “gamble” that might cost Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan his political future.
Turkey’s main Kurdish party, the Democratic People’s Party, also denounced the decision describing it has having “brought Turkey to the edge of war.”
In another development, the head of Iraq’s top Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), said that any new UN resolution must take into account demands that US troops quit the country as soon as possible. “There is international pressure on the US to withdraw its forces from Iraq, and there are demands for the US to be clear on a withdrawal date. So of course we are with the international community to shorten the occupation in Iraq,” Abdel Aziz Al-Hakim said. “We hope they leave as soon as possible,” said the cleric, who was speaking in a central Tehran mosque following a ceremony marking 40 days of mourning for his brother and predecessor as SCIRI leader, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer Al-Hakim.
In western Baghdad, about 5,000 Shiites gathered outside a mosque demanding the release of two clerics detained by the US forces after denouncing the Americans. Thousands of members of the Mehdi Army militia run by cleric Moqtada Sadr, sporting black headbands and waving Iraqi flags, marched around the Ali Al-Bayaa Mosque as uneasy US troops looked on.
US Brig. Gen. Martin Dempsey told a cleric at the mosque, Sheikh Hassan Zardani: “You have to control your people and I control my people.” He said he had no authority to release Moayad Kazrajy and Jaleel Al-Shumari, adding, “the charges for both is conducting criminal and anti-coalition acts.”
