Word: peshmerga
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Elsewhere too, Iraqis are taking matters into their own hands. Traveling east toward the Kurdish city of Arbil, one encounters checkpoints every 10 miles or so. The peshmerga fighters who man the roadblocks address drivers in Kurdish. If the drivers are Arabs who cannot speak the local language, their cars are pulled aside and thoroughly searched. The checkpoints went up after devastating bomb attacks in February against both major Kurdish parties killed more than 100 people...
...Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Shi'ite's major political party. These fighters conducted anti-Saddam guerrilla operations from bases in Iran for years and have emerged to protect holy places and run security across much of central and southern Iraq. In the north, the Kurdish peshmerga, a 50,000-man paramilitary force that has operated freely in its largely autonomous zone since 1991, intends to remain an active regional guard...
Fearing the militias could turn to political intimidation as the rivalry for political supremacy heats up, the U.S. wants them disarmed. But U.S. occupation commanders have never tried to do so by force. In fact, the U.S. has needed the militias: the peshmerga not only effectively police the north but also provide critical intelligence about infiltrators in the border areas. In the south, the Shi'ite militias have controlled restive communities that have grown disaffected with the occupation. By last week, Bremer thought he had coaxed council members to accept a constitutional pledge to blend their militias into the national...
...disarming the militias while violence flourishes will be a dicey proposition. The Shi'ites say they deserve the same dispensation to protect themselves as the Kurds. The Kurds feel they have had a tacit understanding, now acknowledged in the transition charter, that the peshmerga would be allowed to keep their arms. Even if others disagree, the Kurd militia does not plan to give up its weapons. "The peshmerga were on the right side of the fence" against Saddam and fought side by side with the Americans, says Qubad Talabani, son and aide to top Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani. "There...
...make new ones, traveling with interpreters, wearing local garb, trying to blend in and take control. An Army captain who jumped into the region with a team of four others told TIME that his detachment suddenly found itself in charge of 300 Kurdish fighters from the north, known as peshmerga, who had been fighting Saddam for a dozen years. Joint strategy meetings were anything but regular Army. "A lot of communication goes on over pita bread, chai and rice," said the U.S. officer. "We ate what they...