Word: barmani
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...easier to find Turkish soldiers than Kurdish rebels. The Turkish army maintains at least four bases inside northern Iraq as a result of an agreement with Saddam Hussein after the American no-flight zone created a power vacuum in the region during the 1990s. In the town of Barmani, the Turks have a base with 35 tanks, and are repairing a disused air strip and building up troop levels, according to Iraqi Kurdish intelligence officers. But this is no invasion: The Turks supply and man these stations simply by sending uniformed soldiers through the Ibrahim Khalil border on buses...
...While the Turks drive their tanks through Barmani in broad daylight once a week, the PKK guerillas are more elusive. Although the Turkish army claims that the PKK is using northern Iraq as a staging ground for attacks inside Turkey, the PKK's main bases are in the Qandil mountains, near the border with Iran and beyond the easy reach of a large Turkish force. The few PKK bases near the Turkish border are also difficult to reach, located long distances on single-track dirt roads high in classic insurgency country. One camp that's home to some 300 fighters...
...been on their own searches - all futile. I can't say that we covered all the spots the Turks may be hidden, but the rumor mill in Kurdistan can report news faster than CNN. If there had been a Turkish incursion up the road, the people of Barmani, Amedi or Duhok would have heard about...
...Barmani, a village in the northwest of Iraqi Kurdistan, the Turkish presence is blatant. Just on the side of the road, about 20 tanks rest in an abandoned military airport, many covered with tarps. A few bored Turkish soldiers sit watching the cars drive by. But this is not the Turkish invasion the Kurds have been fearing - these troops have been here since 1996, when they came to fight the Kurdish Workers Party, the famed PKK, who had taken refuge here in Iraq. The PKK is long gone from this part of Kurdistan but the Turkish troops have remained...
| 1 |