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Israel training Kurdish commandos in Iraq: report
Israel has operatives training commando units in Kurdish areas of US-occupied Iraq, an alignment with the Kurds that gives Israel "eyes and ears" in Iraq, Iran and Syria, The New Yorker magazine has reported.
The article by award-winning reporter Seymour Hersh, who earlier this year exposed the extent of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, quoted a CIA official as saying the Israeli presence is widely known in the US intelligence community.
Members of Israel's Mossad secret service are among the agents working in Iraq, where some pose as businessmen, the report said.
The report quoted a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington as saying: "The story is simply untrue."
The report, quoting current and former intelligence officials in the United States, the Middle East and Europe, said one of Israel's main objectives is to increase Kurdish military strength to balance that of Shiite militias.
"Look, Israel has always supported the Kurds in a Machiavellian way as balance against Saddam," the magazine quotes a former Israeli intelligence official as saying.
"It's Realpolitik. By aligning with the Kurds, Israel gains eyes and ears in Iran, Iraq and Syria."
The report also said Israeli operatives had crossed into Iran with Kurdish commandos to install sensors and other sensitive devices to spy on Iran's suspected nuclear facilities.
Mr Hersh wrote that by the end of last year, Israel concluded the administration of US President George W Bush "would not be able to bring stability or democracy to Iraq, and that Israel needed other options".
But the move to align with separatist Kurds could be damaging to Israel's relations
with Turkey and undermine efforts to create a stable Iraq, the report said.
"We tell our Israeli and Kurdish friends that Turkey's goodwill lies in keeping Iraq together," the report quoted a Turkish diplomat as saying.
"We will not support alternative solutions."
Turkey expressed its concern on Monday over ethnic and political divisions in neighbouring Iraq and said it could not stand quietly by if Kurds took control of the major northern oil hub of Kirkuk.
Ethnic tensions have risen in Kirkuk, a city of 750,000, as political groups jostle for advantage ahead of the planned June 30 handover of power in Iraq from US occupation forces to an interim government.
Turkey fears Kurdish domination of Kirkuk and its energy resources will greatly boost prospects for Kurdish autonomy and possibly even independence, which in turn could reignite separatism among Ankara's own Kurds in south-eastern Turkey.
Turkish Kurdish guerrillas called off a six-year unilateral ceasefire on June 1 and stepped up attacks on security forces in south-eastern Turkey.
"Everybody knows about Turkish sensitivities over Kirkuk. We would never allow (Kurdish domination to become) a fait accompli in Kirkuk," Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul told reporters.
"Everyone should have their fair share of the country's wealth."
Kurds regard Kirkuk as a Kurdish city and want to reverse Saddam Hussein's "Arabisation" policy which forced Kurds from their homes, replacing them with mostly Shiite Muslim Arabs.
Turkish security forces say some 2,000 Kurdish fighters have crossed into Turkey recently from northern Iraq.
More than 30,000 people were killed during secessionist violence in south-eastern Turkey in the 1980s and 1990s but the fighting largely subsided after the 1999 capture of rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan.
Reuters/AFP
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