Northern Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Already a dangerous battleground for an array of forces, Baghdad could soon be flooded with another volatile element: thousands of Kurds from northern Iraq. As part of President Bush's new strategy for Iraq, 8,000 to 10,000 Iraqi troops will deploy to Baghdad from elsewhere in the country in the coming weeks, according to American and Iraqi officials. As many as 3,600 of them could be Kurds. It would be the first time such a large number of Kurdish forces have been sent to the capital.

BAGHDAD -- Kurdish separatists said yesterday that they would stop their cross-border attacks on Turkish forces if Ankara dropped its threats to launch an offensive on their mountain enclaves in Iraqi Kurdistan. Turkey, stung by a Kurdistan Workers Party raid during the weekend that left at least 12 of its infantrymen dead, has begun sending troops to the border with Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region to prepare for a possible strike. Many fear such a move could destabilize the sole region of Iraq that has remained relatively peaceful since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

WASHINGTON -- The United States, almost alone among major Western countries in backing Turkey's drive to capture Kurdish guerrilla leader Abdullah Ocalan, may have helped the Turks nab him.An American official said the United States provided valuable information that helped the Turks track down their prey, who was captured Monday in Kenya and taken to Turkey.The arrest gave the Turkish government of Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit a major political victory and marked a milestone in Ankara's 14-year war against the armed Turkish Workers' Party, or PKK, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

WASHINGTON -- Turning a significant corner in its dealings with Iraq, the United Nations Security Council yesterday began discussing a French plan that calls for a lifting of the 8-year-old oil embargo and an easing of weapons inspections.The United States and Britain repeated their opposition to lifting sanctions unless Iraq disarms and discloses its programs to develop weapons of mass destruction. But State Department spokesman James P. Rubin made clear that the French plan could serve as the basis for developing a new U.N. approach to Iraq.

ANKARA, Turkey -- Hoping to help rebuild an opposition movement in Iraq, the Clinton administration is bringing the leaders of two rival Iraqi Kurdish factions to Washington for face-to-face talks aimed at ending their military conflict.A meeting between Massoud Barzani of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan is expected to take place within the next two weeks. The U.S. effort comes amid concern that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein may be ready to use force to reassert his rule over Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.

IRAQI AIR DEFENSE missile challenges to U.S. planes over the no-fly zone in northern Iraq were no surprise. Such clashes have happened occasionally since the no-fly zones were established in 1991 to prevent Saddam Hussein from slaughtering ethnic Kurds in northern Iraq or Shiite Muslim Arabs in southern Iraq.The U.S. retaliation, a rocket attack on the missile battery, is also part of the drill.The U.S.-British bombing raid to degrade Iraq's military capability in mid-December brought no expectation of closure.

WASHINGTON - The missile attacks launched by President Clinton against Iraqi military sites last week failed to address the real cause of the crisis: Saddam Hussein's move into Kurdish territory in northern Iraq.As a result, a serious source of regional instability is likely to continue to fester, causing future problems for the United States.Instead of halting Iraqi troops before they moved into the Kurdish capital, Erbil, or ousting them once they got there, President Clinton sought to punish Saddam Hussein elsewhere.

SADDAM HUSSEIN's success in regaining effective control of the Kurdish region of northern Iraq easily exceeds any gains the United States may have made in extending its southern no-fly zone and attacking Iraqi air defense installations. While President Clinton was quick -- perhaps too quick -- to call last week's U.S. response a success, he now faces the fact that the Iraqi dictator is again an effective trouble-maker in the world's most abundant oil-producing region.The U.S. effort after the end of the gulf war to protect the Kurdish population of northern Iraq has turned into a fiasco.

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey -- Soldiers from Saddam Hussein's army, who overran and captured the northern Iraq town of Erbil this weekend, conducted house-to-house searches for those Kurdish leaders they viewed as enemies or traitors and killed hundreds of people, fleeing aid workers arriving here said yesterday.The attackers arrived in several hundred tanks early Saturday morning, surrounding Erbil and cutting off escape routes. Senior officials of the Kurdish group that controlled the town until then were said to have been among those captured and possibly executed by Iraqi soldiers and their Kurdish allies.

PARIS -- We now see the disadvantages of a foreign policy driven by electoral considerations, developed from focus groups and public-opinion polls. Put another way, the chickens are coming home to roost.They arrive from the Eastern Mediterranean in general, Kurdistan in particular, and from Bosnia, Russia, Western Europe and Cuba. Policies conceived to please interest groups in the United States are producing good poll results for presidential candidate Bill Clinton, but negative results for the United States.

On Saturday, as 4,000 runners hit the streets in the Under Armour Baltimore Marathon, a more compelling race will take place half a world away. There, in a salute to the run back home, an Ellicott City man will head a small band of U.S. soldiers on a 13-mile chase through the rocky hills of northern Iraq - amid dangers unknown, and in 100-degree heat. Leading the pack will be Timothy Kirby, 36, an Army captain from Howard County who is part of an elite Border Transition Team stationed in Sulaimaniyah, in the mountains of Kurdistan.

BAGHDAD - -A bomb in a sprawling Shiite Muslim neighborhood killed at least 72 people and wounded more than 135 Wednesday, highlighting the danger that Iraq could slip into unrestrained violence after U.S. combat troops leave its cities - and with the deadline less than a week away. It was unclear who was responsible for detonating the bomb, which was hidden in a motorcycle with a vegetable cart. Some blamed Sunni insurgents from al-Qaida in Iraq or remnants of former dictator Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, but others suggested that the bombing was the result of disputes among Shiite factions.

WASHINGTON - Violence has largely subsided in Iraq. American casualties are at their lowest levels since 2003, and Iraqi forces are maintaining security in most of the country. Is the war in Iraq over? Iraq is a hot issue out on the presidential campaign trail, where Barack Obama and John McCain are squabbling over the genesis of the war and where to go from here. But from the battlefield, U.S. combat commanders are giving some surprising answers. "Our ticket out of here was to develop Iraqi security forces.

SULAYMANIYA, Iraq -- Turkey unleashed air and artillery strikes against Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq yesterday, officials here said, five days after the Turks completed a major ground offensive in the mountainous border region. Turkey declared at the time that it had achieved its goal of denying the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, a free hand to attack its territory from sanctuaries in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region. But U.S. and Turkish military analysts were skeptical that the operation would have more than a temporary effect.

BAGHDAD -- Army and police checkpoints dotted the Iraqi capital yesterday in preparation for a visit by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran that will coincide with the visit of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Adm. Mike Mullen arrived in Baghdad yesterday on an unannounced trip to meet with commanders and Iraqi officials before a series of briefings he is to make to President Bush in April about the way ahead in the war effort. There were no plans for Mullen and Ahmadinejad, who is to arrive today, to cross paths, and the timing of their visits appeared to be coincidental.

BAGHDAD -- Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates urged the Turkish military yesterday to abandon its invasion of guerrilla-controlled lands in the northernmost reaches of Iraq by mid-March, amid signs that the American and Iraqi governments are increasingly worried that fierce fighting along the mountainous Turkey-Iraq border could widen into a broader and bloodier conflict. "It's very important that the Turks make this operation as short as possible and then leave," Gates told reporters in India yesterday as he prepared to leave for Ankara, Turkey's capital.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush spoke by telephone yesterday to 10 U.S. servicemen and women stationed in Iraq and elsewhere around the world to thank them for serving their country and spending the holiday season away from their families. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the president told them their country is proud of them. "He said he couldn't thank them enough for their contribution to their country, hopes they are in high spirits, and that they are serving a cause that is very noble," Perino said.

BAGHDAD -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking shortly after Turkey sent about 300 troops across the border in pursuit of Kurdish separatist guerrillas, cautioned yesterday against any action that could destabilize Iraq. Turkey's one-day incursion began hours before Rice arrived in Kirkuk in the latest attempt to revive Iraq's stalled reconciliation process after a sharp downturn in violence. U.S. officials have reported a 60 percent drop in attacks nationwide since the completion of a 28,500-troop buildup in June.

President Bush and leading Democratic presidential candidates have said a military attack on Iran is a viable option. According to the president, Iran's pursuit of nuclear technology puts the Middle East "under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust." Yet the 1981 Algiers Accords, backed by Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, prohibit such an attack. The Bush administration has defended the validity of the Algiers Accords in court, and the courts agreed, so there can be no doubt of the documents' legality.

WASHINGTON -- With Turkey poised to attack Kurdish rebels launching cross-border assaults from northern Iraq, President Bush pledged yesterday to cooperate with the Turkish military in locating and disrupting terrorist camps responsible for the conflict. After a meeting between Bush and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, the White House indicated that it is too soon to tell whether a Turkish incursion into the Kurdish territory of northern Iraq would be averted. But Bush and Erdogan indicated they are willing to work together, coordinating the intelligence of the U.S. and Turkish militaries, to track down and "dissolve" the camps and disrupt the supply lines of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. "The PKK is an enemy of Turkey, a free Iraq and the United States of America," Bush said, seated next to the Turkish leader in the Oval Office after their private meeting.