By Sabrina Tavernise
New York Times
20 May 2003
SEEHA, (Southern Kurdistan), May 19 — American troops trying to quell ethnic clashes in northern Iraq came under fire on Sunday night, as tensions between Arabs and Kurds continued to simmer, increasing the dangers faced by troops charged with keeping the peace.
One soldier was injured in the firefight, which followed clashes in Kirkuk on Saturday that left at least nine people dead. On Sunday in Erbil, in a move that could deepen hostility between the groups, the Kurdish regional parliament passed a toughly worded law that would "cancel the history of Arabization in Kurdistan."
Under the law, non-Kurds who came to three northern cities during Saddam Hussein's campaign to populate the north with Arabs, would be forced to leave. The law gives no specifics on how it would be carried out.
The American soldiers who were attacked Sunday were on their way to Hawija, about 20 miles from Kirkuk, thought to be the hometown of many of the Arab men involved in the clashes on Saturday.
Capt. Joel Fischer of the First Infantry Division said that Arabs who took part in the clashes in Kirkuk were armed and that interviews with men stopped at vehicle checkpoints over the weekend revealed that many of them had come from Hawija.
But the trip to search and secure the town proved more difficult than the soldiers had expected. On the road into Hawija, about 9 p.m., troops from the First Infantry Division and the 173rd Airborne Brigade stopped for a break at this village. Suddenly, armed men appeared in a barley field along the dark country road.
"All of a sudden, the town erupted in gunfire," said Lt. Ryan Williams, a member of the approximately 35-man task force. Seeha is about eight miles from Hawija.
The fighting continued for about an hour, with the American soldiers taking heavy fire during the first 30 minutes. Even after reinforcement tanks rolled in, the men from the village kept up their fire for 30 minutes more, Captain Fischer said.
One American soldier was shot twice, but he was not critically wounded. A bullet lodged in his protective vest, and another in his body. He was evacuated in a medical helicopter. Even after two Apache helicopters flew in to give support from the air, the convoy could not move forward. It was not until after 11 p.m. that troops were finally able to continue toward Hawija.
"They were good shots," Captain Fischer said in an interview in Kirkuk after the troops returned from the operation. "There was a high volume of fire, and it was fairly accurate. It was coordinated. I heard reports of tracer rounds being fired as we moved forward."
The fight highlighted the difficulties American troops face as they try to pick their way through ethnic disputes. They must strike a balance between Arabs and Kurds, sometimes without knowing whom they are fighting. This weekend, for example, fliers were distributed by an unknown group in an Arab area, warning residents to leave or be forced out.
"You just need to be out there and see what's going on," Captain Fischer said. "Then you determine where to be out in force. If you go out in force all the time, it loses its effect."
The exhausted battalion finally reached Hawija in the early morning hours today. They set up several checkpoints on the main roads in and out of the town and began checking each passing car for weapons. By midmorning today a serpentine line of cars waiting to be searched snaked along one of the main roads into the village.
"The word is out that Americans have come to check for weapons," said Sgt. Mark Douglas of the First Infantry Division. "There's a lot of money coming through this town."
As the morning wore on, many questions remained about the night's firefight. Villagers, mainly Arab farmers, were out inspecting the damage. No one was hurt, they said, but they lost property. By their count, American artillery killed five cows, six or seven sheep and a donkey, tore holes in six houses and destroyed two tractors. In all, about 60 families live in Seeha.
The farmers admitted that they had fired on the soldiers but said they had not known they were shooting at Americans because of the darkness. Tense after the weekend violence in Kirkuk, they said they mistook the troops for invading Kurds. About 15 people fired for 30 minutes, said Akhmed Saleh, one of the farmers who took part in the gunfight.
"It was the Americans' mistake," said Mr. Saleh, standing near a gaping hole in his neighbor's house caused by American tank fire. "We didn't know they were Americans." The farmers said they were armed with only simple rifles and had stopped firing and fled as soon as they realized whom they were fighting. They said they had no other guns.
The Americans, however, were skeptical. By morning, they had confiscated 15 or 16 automatic weapons, including AK-47 guns and two Belgian-made guns, Captain Fischer said. "The weapons we found were not typical of farmers," the captain said. "One of the guns they had I couldn't afford. The movement tactics we saw were not from farmers."
Kirkuk today was quiet. Local representatives from the Arab and Kurdish communities were talking to people in neighborhoods, urging calm. A joint meeting in a mosque on Sunday night seemed to reach a truce, though shooting continued in the Qadesiyah neighborhood. A Turkmen representative was shot in the hand while he was leaving a meeting on Sunday.
Everyone in the north has a gun. After the fall of Kirkuk, American forces found more than a division's worth of weapons and ammunition in strategic points around the city.
"There were houses filled floor to ceiling and wall to wall with tank ammo and artillery rounds," Captain Fischer said. "They were quickly emptied out."
It was unclear when more clashes would occur, but Captain Fischer said he was sure that at some point they would.
"It will flare up again," he said. Easing the problem "will require patience on everyone's part, including ours. You have to define what the problem actually is and talk through it."
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Citation: Sabrina Tavernise, "Americans Try to Quell Arab-Kurd Flare-Up," New York Times, 20 May 2003.
Original URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/20/international/worldspecial/20NORT.html
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