(C) KDP KIRKUK ASAYISH HEAD ON SECURITY, MERGER WITH PUK,

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KIRKUK 000136

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

BAGHDAD FOR POL, POLMIL, NCT, IRMO

E.O. 12958: DECL: 8/2/2016
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PINR PINS PNAT PREF PREL PTER KDEM IZ
TU
SUBJECT: (C) KDP KIRKUK ASAYISH HEAD ON SECURITY, MERGER WITH PUK,
KRG ACTION AGAINST PKK

REF: KIRKUK 00000135

KIRKUK 00000136 001.2 OF 003


CLASSIFIED BY: Jim Bigus, PRT Leader, POL, Department of State.
REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)




1. (C) INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY: KDP Kirkuk Asayish head,
Hallo Najat Hamza, told IPAOs on July 25 that the terrorists
were getting stronger and were targeting security forces in
Kirkuk. Hamza said the open borders of Kirkuk and guards
cooperating with the terrorists at checkpoints were primarily to
blame. Hamza said the current police chief and poor quality of
Iraqi Police (IP) training were also responsible for the
deteriorating security situation. He said there were more
foreign fighters among the terrorists than previously. Hamza
offered suggestions for improving security, including
privatization of the security forces in Kirkuk. He was not
optimistic about merging PUK and KDP Asayish within the coming
year. KDP Asayish were present in all of the liberated, mixed
Kurdish areas currently outside the Kurdistan Regional
Government (KRG) borders from Kirkuk to Iran, he claimed. Hamza
said Kurdish public reaction to KRG taking action against the
PKK would be negative. END INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY.

(C) TERRORISTS GETTING STRONGER, TARGETING SECURITY FORCES
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2. (C) KDP Kirkuk Asayish head, Hallo Najat Hamza, told IPAOs on
July 25, that terrorist operations in Kirkuk had increased in
the last two months. He said the terrorists were targeting
security forces successfully, which indicated the terrorists
were getting stronger. One of the main problems, according to
Hamza, was the open borders surrounding Kirkuk, particularly in
the southern areas, which provided ideal conditions for multiple
smuggling routes. He said Hewija had become a stronghold of
terrorists because it shared its borders with Mosul and Tikrit.
Terrorists placed bombs in cars outside Kirkuk in one of the
many villages from which they operated; the cars were then
brought into the city through checkpoints around Kirkuk where,
Hamza claimed, the guards did not cooperate with the Asayish
security forces. He said the Asayish had recently captured a
person from Tunisia who was leading a cell in Hewija and
confessed to having extensive financial support and cell
branches throughout the area. Hamza said requests for increased
Coalition presence in the Hewija area to hinder terrorist
movement have been successful but sometimes had an adverse
impact on Asayish operations. For example, he said the
Coalition Forces recently used a helicopter to monitor area
roads, alerting the terrorists into taking a different route and
thus avoiding the roadblock traps the Asayish had set to capture
them and get more information.

(C) POLICE CHIEF'S PERFORMACE RATED "UNDER ZERO"
-------------- ---

3. (C) Hamza said that he rated the performance of current
Chief of Police in Kirkuk, General Sherko, as "under zero" and
that some called him "grandfather Sherko," a reference to his
age and prevailing sentiment that it was time for him to retire.
He said Sherko was first and foremost responsible for the poor
security situation in Kirkuk. Hamza claimed the regular police
do not respect Sherko's orders and that he did not enjoy good
formal, public relations with high profile leaders or important
ethnic communities. He said Sherko had good "informal"
relations with important groups and their leaders, but this was
not enough to command wide respect. Hamza said it was not
important who replaced Sherko, as long as he was qualified and
could work effectively to improve security. (Note: PUK Asayish
head, Halkawt Abdullah Aziz, informed post on July 24 that KDP
representatives said they would support any PUK choice for
Sherko's replacement. (Ref. Kirkuk 000135.) End note.) Hamza
said in connection with this statement that currently he enjoys
good relations with Samir Nazib and Brigadier Zurhan.

(C) MORE FOREIGN FIGHTERS
--------------


4. (C) Hamza said the number of foreign fighters responsible
for terrorist attacks in Kirkuk had been increasing this year
and blamed this on neighboring countries working to hinder the
implementation of Article 140 and normalization of Kirkuk. He
claimed there was local support for the terrorists and that an
Arab Asayish employee in the IA had been approached and told to
join the terrorists or be killed. Hamza added that terrorists
recently had rented a very expensive house in Kirkuk, a sign
they have affluent and influential connections in the city.
Hamza dismissed the fact that apparently none of the
approximately 150 suspects rounded up during recent raids in
Hewija were foreigners; he said they knew how to hide themselves

KIRKUK 00000136 002.2 OF 003


to evade capture. (Note: At the request of local Sunni tribal
shaykhs, Coalition Forces on July 24 conducted a series of raids
against suspected terrorist cells in Hewija. End note.)

(C) POOR IP TRAINING AND DISCIPLINE
--------------


5. (C) Hamza said inadequate training and discipline were
having an impact on IP capabilities to improve security. He
said a review of video from a recent IP police raid on the
residence where a group of terrorists were killed demonstrated
it was a random operation with no clear plan and that the police
attack was clearly uncoordinated. Hamza added IP were often
seen sleeping by the side of the road or not wearing their vests
and that there was a clear lack of discipline to the force in
general. The IP has asserted they were conducting night patrols
all over Kirkuk city, but Hamza claimed he had evidence the IP
stayed away from the city center and only patrolled the northern
- and safer - part of the city.

(C) IMPROVING SECURITY - DIG A TRENCH, INCREASE COURT STAFF
-------------- --------------


6. (C) Hamza suggested Kirkuk follow Erbil's model, where the
security services had dug a trench around the city's perimeter
and posted guards every 1-1.5 kilometers. He said this was very
effective in Erbil and could be replicated in Kirkuk. Also,
restructuring the IP was necessary to strengthen security,
especially some battalions in the Arab areas where the police
often fought along side the terrorists against Asayish. Hamza
said the courts were ineffective: lack of evidence and trial
judges not adhering to the full legal process were the two main
reasons terrorist suspects were released, according to Hamza.
In addition, those terrorists who did make it through the court
system and were convicted went free because staff shortages and
overcrowding in the only prison facility meant the court was
unable to hold terrorists for even 24 hours. He said he favored
the creation of a special office to investigate and try
terrorists.

(C) LIAISON RELATIONS WITH ISF AND COALITION
--------------


7. (C) The Asayish in Kirkuk were not involved at checkpoints
and did not arrest or participate in arrests, Hamza claimed. He
said on occasion they participated in joint operations with the
Iraqi Army (IA) or IP when asked. Hamza said that 60 percent of
KDP Asayish officers assisted the Coalition by collecting
information and compiling files on suspects, while the other 40
percent worked with the IA and IP at the municipal and
provincial level. (Note: These claims are questionable as he
also often referred to arrests and questioning that had been
conducted independently. End note.)

(C) KDP-PUK ASAYISH MERGER - "THERE'S ALWAYS 2007"
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8. (C) Hamza claimed there was no rush locally to merge the
KDP and PUK Asayish organizations and that there was no specific
timeline for the merger from the KRG Ministry of Interior. He
said he was about to meet with PUK counterparts to discuss this
issue for the first time and that most of the pressure to merge
the two security services came from Erbil. Hamza added that,
although the two Asayish services shared information, their
efforts had been uncoordinated and relations with the PUK had
not been "on a high level" to this point. Hamza claimed there
were plans to coordinate with PUK Asayish formally in the
future, and said that he did not anticipate a problem if the
referendum and annexation of Kirkuk occurred before the merger
of the security services was complete. He noted that the KRG
administration required that the two groups merge by the end of

2006. When questioned if this was realistic he sounded
doubtful, stating that the separate KDP and PUK Asayish leaders
would simply continue to have "meetings and more meetings" to
discuss the merger. If it wasn't completed by the end of the
year, he shrugged, there was always 2007.

(U) KDP ASAYISH COMPOSITION, PRESENCE BELOW 'GREEN LINE'
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9. (C) All of the Asayish officers in the "liberated Kurdish
areas" reported to him in Kirkuk, Hamza said. Around 2,000
Asayish officers came under his authority, he said, and were
located in the "mixed" Kurdish districts and sub-districts from
Kirkuk to Iran; 700 were based in Kirkuk, and of these 10 were
Arabs. He said dividing the Asayish into branches headed by
lieutenants helped to manage such an expansive organization, but
effective monitoring was sometimes difficult.

KIRKUK 00000136 003.2 OF 003



(C) BAGHDAD'S SECTARIAN PROBLEMS THREATEN KIRKUK
-------------- ---


10. (C) Hamza claimed the Sunni-Shia strife in Baghdad was
about to affect Kirkuk. Although the Shia numbers were small in
and around Kirkuk, Hamza said they were able to cause increasing
problems since they belonged to militias who did not have
uniforms. Without uniforms these militants were difficult to
capture because, as soon as they disarmed themselves, they could
blend into a civilian crowd. He claimed the Kirkuk
sub-districts of Daquq and Taza already had Shia militias.

(C) KURDISH PUBLIC REACTION TO KRG ACTION AGAINST THE PKK
-------------- --------------


11. (C) Hamza said that, according to his information, the
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) had no plans to take action
against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK, formerly Kongra
Gel/KGK) but that the Asayish were part of the KRG and would
honor its decision if the KRG were to call for such action. He
claimed that the Kurdish public response to KRG action against
the PKK would be negative. Hamza said a media campaign would be
necessary first if the KRG planned to expel the PKK from
Kurdistan in order to prepare the Kurdish public. He claimed
Turkey did not want to solve the PKK issue on the grounds that
it served as justification for the Turkish military to meddle in
Kurdistan's internal affairs.

(C) BIOGRAPHIC NOTES
--------------


12. (C) Hallo Najat Hamza: Current head of Kirkuk KDP
Asayish; born in 1974 in a mountain area after the Iraqi regime
expelled his family from their village; his father was a strong
supporter of Mustafa Barzani and Hamza's family fled to Iran
after the 1975 Algiers agreement between Tehran and Baghdad that
ended Iranian military support for the Iraqi Kurds; his family
returned from Iran in 1976 after the KDP reorganized its forces;
he studied for a period of time in Iran; received a diploma in
Military Science from Zhako Military Academy; liaison officer
between KDP Peshmerga and Coalition forces during Operation
Iraqi Freedom (OIF); speaks some English, which he learned while
working with the Central Intelligence Agency prior to OIF;
source told post he believed his age, young by Kurdish
leadership standards, was not a detriment because it enabled him
to relate to the concerns of Kurdish youth.

(U) COMMENT
--------------


13. (C) IPAOs noted that Hamza and the PUK Asayish head (Ref.
Kirkuk 000135) cited cases in which Kurdish security forces
arrested, detained, and questioned suspects where no other Iraqi
security services apparently were involved, indicating that
Asayish in some cases were operating extra legally. The
indifference of the two Asayish heads to merging their services
forebodes conflict at the lower tiers of KDP and PUK security
forces where local leaders from each party have much at stake,
especially in Kirkuk and the disputed territories outside the
official KRG boundaries. Current levels of cooperation between
the two services would indicate any real Asayish merger is
unlikely prior to the referendum on Kirkuk's final status, set
to occur no later than the end of December, 2007.
JBIGUS