Iraqi Kurdish independence likely ‘not if but when’: gen

Iraq probes allegations of human rights violation

WASHINGTON, May 24, (Agencies): An Iraqi Kurdish push for independence from Baghdad appears likely to be a question of “not if but when,” in a significant challenge to Iraq’s stability, the head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency said on Tuesday.

Iraq’s main Kurdish parties announced in April a plan to hold a referendum on independence this year, after the defeat of Islamic State militants.

The DIA’s director, Lieutenant General Vincent Stewart, told a Senate hearing that the ability of Iraq’s Kurds to reach an understanding with the Shi’ite-dominated government in Baghdad would be essential to avoid renewed conflict.

“Kurdish independence is on a trajectory where it is probably not if but when. And it will complicate the situation unless there’s an agreement in Baghdad,” said Stewart, whose role is to provide intelligence assessments and not to craft US policy.

“So this a significant referendum that comes up in October this year.”

The Kurds have played a major role in the US-backed campaign to defeat Islamic State, the ultra-hard-line Sunni Muslim group that overran about a third of Iraq nearly three years ago.

The militants are now fighting off Iraqi forces in Mosul, their last major urban stronghold in Iraq from where they declared a “caliphate” that also includes parts of Syria.

While the fall of Mosul would effectively end the “caliphate,” it will not solve deep divisions over power, land and resources between Iraq’s Shi’ite Arab majority and the important Sunni Arab and Kurdish communities.

“Once ISIS is defeated in Mosul, the greatest challenge to the Iraqi government is to reconcile the differences between the Shia-dominated government, the Sunnis out west and the Kurds to the north,” Stewart said.

The Iraqi Kurds have their own armed forces, the Peshmerga, which in 2014 prevented Islamic State from capturing the oil region of Kirkuk, after the Iraqi army fled in the face of the militants.

The Kurds have historical claims over Kirkuk, which is also inhabited by Turkmen and Arabs. Hard-line Iranian-backed Iraqi Shi’ite militias have threatened to expel the Kurds by force from this region and other disputed areas.

“Resolving the Kirkuk oil field and the revenues associated with the oil fields, resolving the ownership of the city of Kirkuk, will be significant political challenges for the Iraqi government,” Stewart said.

He warned of dire consequences should Baghdad be unable or unwilling to reach an understanding with the Kurds or the Sunnis.

“Failure to address those challenges, coming up with a political solution, will ultimately result in conflict among all of the parties to resolve this and going back to what could devolve into a civil strife in Iraq,” he said.

Iraqi Kurdish independence has been historically opposed by Iraq and its neighbors, Iran, Turkey and Syria, which fear similar aspirations by their own Kurdish populations.

Meanwhile, Iraq’s Interior Ministry said it launched an investigation into allegations of human rights violations perpetrated by its forces fighting the Islamic State group in Mosul.

The allegations were first reported by Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine last weekend. The report, authored by an Iraqi photographer reportedly embedded Members of Iraqi forces climb out of a house on the frontline in the old city of Mosul on May 24, during the ongoing

offensive to retake the area from Islamic State (IS) group fighters.

with the police unit, claims he witnessed killing, torture and rape of IS suspects.

The ministry’s spokesman, Brig. Gen Saad Maan, said on Tuesday that the newspaper report identifies the Emergency Response Division — an elite unit that answers to the Interior Ministry and has been closely backed

by the US-led coalition in the Mosul fight — as the perpetrator of the abuses. Maan did not give a time frame for the investigating but said “legal measures will be applied ... against wrongdoers.”

An officer with the ERD reached by The Associated Press said his unit is not authorized to comment and that all inquiries should be directed to the Interior

Ministry. In other developments, Amnesty International released a report on Wednesday saying the US Army in Iraq and Kuwait failed to keep track of more a $1 billion worth of arms and other military equipment provided to forces in the fight against IS, according to a 2016 Department of Defense audit obtained by the rights group.