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COPYRIGHT 2004 The Boston Globe
Byline: Thanassis Cambanis
Nov. 30--MOSUL, Iraq -- After Saddam Hussein was ousted and his security apparatus collapsed, many Iraqis predicted ethnic war. They feared ethnic militias like the Kurdish Peshmerga would fill the security vacuum and engage in a bloody power struggle.
Such dire predictions failed to materialize in the 18 months following Hussein's fall. But the recent explosion of violence in this ethnically divided northern city has deteriorated to the brink of widespread ethnic conflict.
The rising tensions spilled over last week as the corpses of Iraqi soldiers, many of them Kurds, continued to pile up in the streets of Mosul. Most of them were killed by single gunshots to the head. Some were beheaded. The prime suspects are Arab Islamists allied with local Ba'athists, operating in the Old City on Mosul's west bank.
Just across the Tigris River, a battalion of Kurdish Peshmerga fighters mustered before their commander in Kurdish-controlled east Mosul, presenting arms and bellowing assent.
"We are here to defend our people. We will fight, and we will win," their commander, Sadi Ahmed Pire, shouted at the 150 fighters crammed into the courtyard of his headquarters. "The Kurds of Mosul will not be second-class citizens."
"We are ready to defend our brothers!" the soldiers chanted in unison.
These scenes explain why Brigadier General Carter Ham, America's top military commander in the north, said he thinks ethnic war is still possible in Mosul.
American officers blame the untamed insurgency against the interim Iraqi government and...
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