Counter insurgency, Kirkuk and Beytüssebap

The text in Kurdish.

I follow news from Kurdistan via internet. Some web pages are made by Kurds from North Kurdistan, some others are made in South Kurdistan. From there I follow mainly the English pages of News agency Peyamner.

When the tension on the boarder between Turkey and South Kurdistan increases, all Kurdish web pages follow the situation closely. Kurds recognize important news on the other side of the boarder but they concentrate mainly on their own area. In Peymner's internet page there are almost daily news about the problems of Kirkuk. In recent days Kurds in North Kurdistan have admired who did the attack in Beytüssebap. Thirteen people were shot dead there the 29th September. Since PKK announced that it did not do this atrocity Kurds assume that it was counter insurgency made by JITEM, the intelligence service of the gendarmerie. Like the bomb attack in Semdinli November 2005.

Kurds have been ruled for centuries by "divide and rule" principle. Now this is changing as the Kurds do not let it any more to continue. There are many small examples of the change.
One example is from the internet page of Peyamner. It puts the news in various categories, for example "national", "Iraq" and "articles". It is interesting that in the category of "national" there are also news from Kirkuk and North Kurdistan. They are not under the control of KRG but they are Kurdish area. But Peyamner does not publish much information about the problems in the north. And the same way the web pages of Turkish Kurds do not tell much about Kirkuk. This is understandable. There are so much local problems in each part of Kurdistan that it takes all the attention of the people. But if Kurds would know better the situation of other Kurds they would understand how similar their problems are.

Last February Ibrahim Aydogdu, the DTP chairman in Diyarbakir, said that any attack to Kirkuk is like one to Diyarbakir. Now there is a big or small attack in Kirkuk almost every day. There are also diplomatic attacks by Turkey to post pone the referendum. Are the northern Kurds doing something?

Here are many types of war. The traditional war starts by a war declaration. Nowadays low intensity war is much more common. Turkey can not attack Kirkuk by aeroplanes and infantry forces. It would spoil its EU negotiations and tourism business. But there are other warfare methods. Counter insurgency which spoils little by little the daily life in the target areas. Black operations.

At the end of September retired Turkish colonel Erdal Sarizeybek published a book entitled "I Have Seen Betrayal", which tells of his time in Hakkari province. Colonel Sarizeybek writes of how the army created "bearded teams", dressed them in PKK uniforms and sent them ahead to secure roads.

If Turkish army can not reach its targets in Kirkuk by other methods there is danger that JITEM will bring to South Kurdistan similar black operations what it is running now in North Kurdistan.