Iraqi Kurds prepare for war against Saddam

Iraqi Kurdish militia, including hundreds of women, are intensifying their training amid the growing prospect of a new war against the forces of President Saddam Hussein.

"Yes!" exclaimed their commander Mustafa Said Qader when asked if he was impatient for the start of the expected US-led offensive against Saddam's regime, which Washington accuses of concealing weapons of mass destruction.

Qader, who says he was held for 15 months and tortured in an Iraqi jail a dozen years ago, would like nothing better than to kill the man he calls the "dictator" with his bare hands, though he would accept a due process followed by a hanging.

However, like all the other political and military chiefs of Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Qader has no idea what role US President George W. Bush has in mind for Saddam's domestic opponents.

"Will the Americans decide to attack alone or in partnership with the Iraqi opposition?" he asked, while rejecting any repetition of the Afghan scenario, where US forces helped the Northern Alliance rebels to overthrow the Taliban.

Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which shares control over autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan with the PUK, was quoted by the Lebanese press as saying Monday that his forces would play no part in an upcoming war.

Talabani was less clear, saying in Tehran last week that "the Americans have not asked us to cooperate militarily against Saddam Hussein; we have our own plans."

He also spoke up against a "military occupation" of Iraq and said it was not part of US planning.

Both Barzani and Talabani are agreed that they will not accept any attempt by Turkey to take advantage of the situation by entering Iraq from the north alongside US forces.

"No one has asked anything of us," agreed PUK official Adnan al-Mufti, who predicted hostilities would begin at the end of February.

Asked about the reported presence of US Central Intelligence Agency operatives in Iraqi Kurdistan, he replied: "The Americans come and go all the time. I don't know whether they belong to the CIA, but we have good relations with them."

Even though Saddam's troops may be too busy defending their key cities, including the northern base of Kirkuk on the fringes of Kurdistan, the Kurds fear reprisal attacks from them, including with chemical weapons as has happened in the past.

"We are prepared for every eventuality," Qader said. "We have already paid a heavy price, but if we must pay more for a democratic Iraq, we will do it. That is why we have been training harder than ever."

Qader said the PUK can mobilise 20,000-25,000 guerrillas, known as peshmergas, and the KDP almost as many. With reservists, the numbers might double.

But he admitted they have hardly any weapons apart from their Kalashnikov assault rifles and a few rocket-launchers.

Among them is Lieutenant Sirwa Ismael, 28, and her battalion of 500 women soldiers, who says she has a "personal" score to settle with Saddam.

"His men destroyed my village", she said, declining to give details, as she drilled her troops in the Suleimaniya training camp.

A founder member of the women's peshmergas when they were formed in November 1996, she has seen combat against other Kurdish groups, including the Ansar al-Islam, allegedly linked to Al-Qaeda.