Word: peshmerga
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...along the ridge carrying packages that could not be made out through binoculars. A large military truck came over the rise, stopping at the major bunker before passing along between a number of smaller others, stopping at points and triggering great commotion. "This is very, very unusual," said Kurdish peshmerga (meaning "those who face death") Abdullah Sajit, who could not bear to turn his binoculars away for a moment...
...These forays, the villagers say, are a means to test the border villages' resolve and sympathies. According to Tariq, one of 50,000 peshmerga (one who faces death) stationed on Kurdistan's front lines with Iraq, the Iraqis are "taking the pulse of the people to see whether they are with the regime or not." The ultimate aim, he says, is to gain advantage and push deeper into the Kurdish region. Baghdad's orders not to engage any opposition, says communist commanderRahim Samin Omer, allows them deniability. "When they see men approaching they withdraw and say they were only doing...
...Kurdish soldiers and intelligence officers on the front claim the February 28 operation was well-rehearsed. Ten days before the assault peshmerga positions along the line of control were swamped by an artillery barrage as infantry maneuvers played out on the Iraqi side. "It kept our heads down while they practiced and tried to gauge how many were in their target villages," says a security official at the crossing checkpoint. On the day of the attack they claim artillery fire hit other positions further inside Kurdistan that could have offered support to the villages under threat...
...other vantage points dotted along the Iraqi front, the peshmerga near Duanzasimam say they have watched Saddam's forces prepare for American bombers. Bunkers are being reinforced, ammunition is being brought forward andtanks are being deployed around Tuz Khurmatu and, more worrying, mysterious covered vehicles the peshmerga say "are like the ones Colin Powell had pictured at the UN" are supposedly arriving at night at a nearby airfield. Tougher restrictions are being imposed on the civilian traffic passing into Baghdad's territory. At Chamchamal, west of Sulaimaniya, fewer and fewer cars are allowed to cross each day. At Kifri, further...
...peshmerga are watching and waiting, eager to engage. On the main artery from the Kurdish city of Arbil to Kirkuk, Kurdish fighters man a gun post at Dawla Bakrah. They claim to have recently exchanged fire with the Iraqi heavy guns sighting their position. Taxi drivers, pumped by both sides for intelligence, have warned the peshmerga of recent activity that appears to involve the placing of explosives on the roads. Rumors are trickling in of Saddam's men sealing off Kurdish quarters in Kirkuk at night to bury mysterious barrels. Farther east in the tiny hamlet of Taqtaq, peshmerga deputy...