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Standoff at U.S. Airbase [Kirkuk Al-Hurriya/FOB Warrior] in Iraq
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Issue
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| Contributor | ArmyDem |
| Last Edited | ArmyDem Nov 17, 2011 09:13pm |
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| Category | News |
| Media | Newspaper - Wall Street Journal |
| News Date | Friday, November 18, 2011 03:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | By SAM DAGHER
BAGHDAD—A tense standoff between local police and the Iraqi Army played out on Thursday at the gate of the U.S. airbase in the northern city of Kirkuk, where a dispute over land and oil threatens national stability and unity as U.S. forces withdraw.
The territorial conflict, between the central government in Baghdad and the semiautonomous Kurdistan region, is just one flashpoint that some American and Iraqi officials say could boil over after the full pullout of U.S. troops at the end of December.
Fears of a clash between Iraqi troops and Kurdish forces were heightened on Thursday, when the Kurdish-dominated police in Kirkuk blocked senior Iraqi Army commanders from entering the airbase, where they said they were planning to take over the facility from the U.S. military.
The army officials brought reporters from Iraqi state-owned television to document the handover, in what appeared to be an effort to show the nation that Baghdad was in charge. The central government, headed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, is increasingly eager to project its power ahead of the U.S. pullout.
The installation, known as Forward Operating Base Warrior, is among nine bases still under U.S. control that are scheduled for transfer to Iraq by the end of December.
The Kurds in the north are sensitive about even allowing the army within the city limits, let alone giving them claim to a military base in the city—one of nearly a dozen disputed patches of oil-rich territory along a 300-mile arc just beyond Iraq's Kurdistan region.
"We did not want a situation where we ended up shooting at each other," said Kirkuk Gov. Najmaldin Karim.
Mr. Karim met with Mr. Maliki and U.S. Ambassador James Jeffrey in Baghdad in an effort to calm the drama that was unfolding 180 miles to the north. |
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