SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq • The Iraqi government will soon dispatch about 6,000 former Kurdish guerrillas to protect electric and oil infrastructure from insurgents attacks, a security official said yesterday.
"A brigade of 6,000 peshmerga will be sent to an area southwest of Kirkuk to protect electric generators between Kirkuk and Baiji," Brigadier General Jabbar Yawar, a spokesman for the Kurdish Regional Government security force said.
At least 55 of the 179 massive transmission towers running between the oil hub of Kirkuk and the central Iraqi refinery city of Baiji have been torn down in recent years, contributing to Iraq's frequent power outages.
Yawar said a delegation from the Kurdish government agreed to dispatch the force after talks with Iraq's defence minister earlier this month and are only awaiting the final approval of Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki.
Similar plans are being drawn up to dispatch Kurdish soldiers to the area around the northern city of Mosul, where insurgents frequently rupture oil pipelines connecting Kirkuk to the Turkish port of Ceyhan.
The peshmerga are former Kurdish guerrillas who were involved in the 2003 US-led invasion before joining national Iraqi security forces.
Iraq could potentially export 1.2m barrels of oil a day from its generous Kirkuk reserves but attacks on its northern infrastructure have left the pipelines dry for months.
9,000 troops for assault in Anbar
More than 9,000 US and Iraqi troops launched a massive assault on insurgents along the Euphrates valley in the restive western province of Anbar, the US military reported yesterday.
Operation Mawtini began on Sunday and aims to "neutralise any future attempts by anti-Iraqi forces to re-establish a presence in key urban areas along the Euphrates valley," the military said in a statement.
The operation involves more than 9,000 US marines, soldiers, sailors and Iraqi army members aiming to flush out insurgents in the Sunni stronghold of Anbar known for its raging anti-US insurgency since the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003.
Violence in Anbar has ebbed after local Sunni Arab tribes joined together and turned against Sunni Islamist Al Qaeda, which had a strong foothold in the vast western region.
That forced a number of Al Qaeda in Iraq militants to move to other provinces, especially north of Baghdad. But some officials have warned Al Qaeda would fight back.
"We anticipate that the terrorists will attempt to step up their attacks in the urban areas to regain power and influence over the population" said Colonel Stacy Clardy, commander of US Marine Regimental Combat Team Two.
