18-03-2010
Mosul - Last week Kurdish soldiers of the Iraqi army tried to arrest three U.S. soldiers. During the fight between Kurdish and U.S. soldiers, three Kurds and five U.S. soldiers were wounded.
Three U.S. soldiers secretly tried to sneak up to the headquarters of the 5th brigade of the Iraqi army in Hamdaniya near Mosul in Northern Iraq. Iraqi Kurdish soldiers thought they were terrorists, and tried to arrest them. As a result there was a clash. The wounded Kurdish soldiers were Lieutenant Sidqi Sharif, Ramazan Salih and Ubid Sa'id.
Ramazan Salih was the first soldiers who saw the 3 U.S soldiers and he didn't know who they were. After that he calls headquarter that three strangers are near their base, after a call to the HQ, he got the arrest order, but he was told not to shoot at them.
"I went with two other soldiers and when we got closer, they start shooting at us," Ramazan said. "After that we all recognized each other and both sides had injured people, the Americans transferred the wounded soldiers by helicopter," Ramazan added.
According to a Kurdish soldier Salar Fatah, who was involved in the confrontation, stated that 4-5 American soldiers were injured and one of them died.
Lieutenant Sidqi Sharif who has three bullet wounds is recovering in a hospital in the Kurdish capital of Erbil of the Kurdistan region. He confirmed that the incident was a mistake by both sides.
According to Sidqi's brother, Muslem Sidqi, his brother thought the Americans were Arabs planning to carry out a bomb attack near their base, while the Americans thought the Kurds were terrorists and started shooting at them.
"The Americans visited the hospital and apologized and admitted they have made a mistake, because the area was under Iraqi force's control and they shouldn't have came near it with out permission" said Muslem Sidqi.
Salar is angry with the Americans and says they don't respect anyone. "They are like that: they hit people and say "I'm sorry" afterwards", said the irritated Salar.
The Kurds have governed their own region, Kurdistan, since 1991 and have pushed to expand the area to include the northern and eastern belt around Mosul and the Sinjar region of western Nineveh. According to article 140 of the Iraqi constitution, the future of the disputed mixed Arab and Kurdish provinces regions should be decided by a referendum and census. This resulted in Arab-Kurdish tensions.
© Rudaw
