Word: mustafa
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Deep Strike. In Baghdad last week, the new Iraqi regime that deposed and killed Kassem in February finally faced up to the issue of peace or continued war with the Kurdish leader, Mustafa Barzani. "The very day of the revolt against Kassem," said an angry Kurdish rebel, "the new Iraqi Revolutionary Command called for Kurdish support. With the revolution, the Iraqi armed forces were totally disorganized, and we could easily have struck deep into Iraq. Instead we accepted their promises and held our fire...
...rebel junta that plotted Kassem's overthrow was apparently made up of captains and lieutenants, except for its leader, ex-Paratroop Colonel Abdul Mustafa. But the man they put forward as their front man came as a shock to Kassem, fighting for his life inside the battered Defense Ministry. The junta named as its new rebel head of state Colonel Abdul Salam Aref, 41, long Kassem's closest friend and most loyal disciple, and alive only because Kassem commuted his 1959 death sentence...
Relations between Mustafa and Kassim gradually worsened after the former's return to Iraq and in August, 1961, Mustafa led his followers into open revolt against the Baghdad government. During the fall and winter of that year he consolidated his position among the various Kurdish tribes, defeated tribal groups armed by Kassim, such as the Lolans and Harchis, and attacked government outposts in Western Iraq. Barzani's success led him to shift his guerrillas to the Eastern Front where he has consistently defeated Kassim's troops. The Kurds, whose total forces number between 12,000 and 15,000 men, have...
...Kassim has little chance of withstanding them, all is not in their favor. Barzani's guerrilla tactics, which have cost the Iraqi army forty men for each Kurdish casualty, will be much less effective on the open plains before Baghdad where Kassim can bring his armament into play. Moreover, Mustafa does not have enough men to occupy any sizable towns. The Iraqi air force is taking a rising toll of women and children through its attacks on Kurdish villages, and this pressure may hamper further Kurdish advance...
...revolt may have several disturbing consequences. First, it has weakened and will further weaken Kassim's regime, perhaps causing its eventual collapse. Were the Baghdad government to fall, a Communist or Communist-controlled regime might easily come to power. If Mullah Mustafa succeeds in creating an autonomous Iraqi Kurdish state, the three million Kurds in Turkey and Iran will probably wish to join him. Such a movement towards a larger independent Kurdistan would seriously disrupt the internal affairs of our closest allies. Moreover, any emerging Kurdish state will make an already seething Middle East even more unstable...