If U.S. attacks, Kurds will too

SORAN BASE, Iraq -- The top Iraqi Kurdish military commander said Saturday his forces would try to capture nearby oil-rich areas if the United States strikes at Saddam Hussein's regime.

The battlefield strategy outlined by Cmdr. Hamid Efendi gives added muscle to a draft constitution proposed this month that envisioned the oil center of Kirkuk as the future capital of their homeland.

But the Kurdish goal of extending their authority to the prized oil fields around Kirkuk and Mosul, now outside the Western-protected Kurdish enclave, carries military and political risks that could trouble Pentagon planners.

Iraqi Kurdish fighters could face direct combat with the more powerful Iraqi forces and open a new front that might divert attention from the goal of toppling Hussein. It would also enrage neighboring Turkey, which controls crucial trade routes for the landlocked Iraqi Kurds.

Turkey sees the oil-producing areas as a traditional ethnic Turkish zone. It also fears an oil-enriched Kurdish region in Iraq could eventually seek independence and encourage autonomy seeking Turkish Kurds.

"Kirkuk is Kurdish. So are parts of Mosul," said Efendi, leader of the 50,000-strong Iraqi Kurdish armed forces comprising soldiers and irregular militia. "We would want to take these areas if the Americans attack."

On Saturday, Turkey's military denied local newspaper reports that as many as 12,000 troops had crossed into northern Iraq in a bid to intimidate Iraqi Kurds there. Turkey maintains thousands of troops in neighboring Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq to chase rebel Kurds seeking autonomy from Turkey.

Efendi said U.S. authorities have made no direct requests for Iraqi Kurd military help during a possible war. But Efendi said U.S. forces would be permitted to stage attacks from the Kurdish area, including possible expansion of two small airstrips for U.S. warplanes.

He appeared reluctant, however, to spread his forces beyond the Iraqi Kurds' self-defined borders, including the oil fields in north-central Iraq.

"We don't want to attack. We want to defend our territory and the Kurds," he said.

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